A Meeting of Mountain Cultures: How the U.S.'s First Skyrunning Race Shaped the Sport

"Leading the group is Marino Giacometti, a mountaineer and founder of the organized sport of skyrunning as well as the first skyrunning circuit, the Fila Skyrunner Trophy. The Italians are there to partake in the inaugural Aspen-Castle Peak SkyMarathon, the American stop of the quickly growing series."

"Although skyrunning has continued to flourish in Europe on highly technical courses that remain close to Giacometti's original vision in the intervening three-plus decades, the sport has seen far less growth in the U.S., where skyrunning events lean far more toward mountain running than true skyrunning."

"Giacometti's original idea for skyrunning was simple: to ascend and descend the 4,000-meter peaks of the Alps as fast as possible, using the most direct, doable route."

In August 1994, Italian skyrunning pioneers led by Marino Giacometti, founder of the organized sport and the Fila Skyrunner Trophy circuit, traveled to Aspen, Colorado for the inaugural American skyrunning event. The Aspen-Castle Peak SkyMarathon represented the first major meeting between European and American mountain cultures in the sport. While American Matt Carpenter won the 4,352-meter peak race, skyrunning developed differently across continents. European skyrunning maintained technical courses aligned with Giacometti's original vision of ascending and descending Alpine peaks as quickly as possible. American skyrunning evolved toward mountain running rather than true skyrunning, resulting in significantly less growth in the U.S. compared to Europe's flourishing sport over three decades.

Read at iRunFar