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The Red Bull Dolomite Man
Scarcely any other extreme sport competition captivates athletes as much as the Red Bull Dolomite Man. Unlike with individual competitions, the competition in Lienz involves athletes working together in a team in a battle for metres and seconds. 110 teams consisting of a mountain runner, a paraglider, a kayaker and a mountain biker will be at the start again this year for the 20th anniversary. Out of a total of some 300 applications, these 110 were able to secure one of the much sought-after starting positions.
Mountain run, the battle against the Dolomites
After a mass start at the main square in Lienz (East Tyrol, Austria), the 110 mountain runner specialists set off towards the Dolomites. The athletes cover a total difference in altitude of almost 1800 metres on an extremely gruelling stretch to the mountain run finish at 2440m.
“You feel incredibly nervous before the start, everyone wants to be at the front on the flat stretch before the first climb. You have to stay completely calm, the mountain comes first,” says Markus Kroll, the reigning Austrian champion in mountain running and many time Dolomite Man winner.
“The Goggsteig separates the wheat from the chaff. When you run up this first steep section, you see for the first time whether you are sufficiently fit. With the hundreds of spectators madly cheering you on, you sometimes want to do too much. You have to stay calm despite the goose-pimples.”
“The toughest bit is the Hallebachtal. When you run into this last valley before the finish, you can already see the finishing line some hundred altitude metres above you. Yet it seems to last an eternity and constant attempts to break away by the top athletes also test your resilience. There is a particularly high risk of being knocked out here.”
The man from the Zillertal explains that the reason why he keeps coming back is the uniqueness of the competition. “Even when you have had a bad day, you know that your three team mates are counting on you. That makes the Red Bull Dolomite Man even tougher since you give it everything. Usually more than you can. It’s incredibly amazing how this team spirit spurs you on.”
The winning time of under 1 hour 30 minutes shows the calibre of the athletes as the route is described as over 6 hours for hikers. Jonathan Wyatt, arguably the best mountain runner in the world, holds the course record with 01:25 hours.
Paragliding
If you ask outsiders which discipline would seem to be the easiest, they often say the paragliding. However when you look more closely at it, you soon find out that even this is no “walk in the park”. For after the hand-off by the mountain runner there is first a bumpy ride over a nasty gravel slope. The whole thing is still downhill and with the full paragliding rucksack. Only then, can the athletes jump off for the first flight towards Moosalm.
Wendelin Ortner, one of the most successful Dolomite Men ever, knows the changes that have taken place over the past 20 years, as he was part of all of them and won the paragliding individual event 6 times. “Before the Red Bull Dolomite Man competition, hardly any of the pilots did any stamina training. The first run downhill and the short but tough mountain run following the intermediate landing demand a particularly high level of fitness, as these take up most of the time,” says the man from the East Tyrol.
“At the beginning we were just not used to mountain running with the parachute - and as a race too. There were colleagues who would sit out at the side during the race, with faces as white a sheet, taking a breather until they felt able to carry on.”
Since last year (2006), in addition to the stresses and strains of the running and the difficulties already in flying, the pilots also have to fly around two pylons. These stand at just under 2000 metres above sea level, tight against the rocky heights of the Dolomites. They are a further aggravation which already last year almost drove many pilots to despair.
White water kayaking
The first two tasks of the kayakers are to float along the Drau and then make a 6m-high jump with the boat. You can already see here who is a real Dolomite Man and has the guts to stay the course regardless of the consequences.
“You need a completely polished technique. If you mess it up and tear the spray deck, then the race is already over before it has really begun,” says Harald Hudetz, many time winner of the Dolomite Man competition.
But also the supposedly calm boat race downriver turns out to be a real challenge due to the exceedingly difficult upstream gates and the Eskimo roll. But the most difficult task is later when the kayakers leave the Drau and enter the glacial stream. An extremely harsh approximately 300-metre-long upstream zone, peppered with up- and down-stream gates, carrying sections and a final but very steep run to the finish push the athletes to the limits.
“The Isel section is arguably the hardest there is in any kayak race. Getting out and running on the slippery stones with the boat is tough. Also, if you do not manage a gate there, you have to do a penalty gate which cruelly goes downriver again and wastes a great deal of time,” says the Carinthian kayaker, talking about the Isel cataract.
Mountainbike – ‘The cunning road-hog’
The mountain bikers have to complete a first section of almost 1400 altitude metres to the Hochsteinhütte. But the Red Bull Dolomite Man would not be the ‘toughest team competition in the world’ if it were just a normal mountain bike course. No, if you love your bike, you must push it. Yet, since pushing is more for beginners, here they prefer to carry the bike. Admittedly not exactly voluntarily, as most of the course is so steep that riding is just impossible.
“For me, as a road racing cyclist, the carrying sections represent the real circuit race. Your pulse rate is at its maximum, the risk of hyperventilating is extremely high,” says Gerrit Glomser, the Austrian professional racing cyclist.
Glomser, who was already ranked third in mountain-biking in his debut season last year, will also be at the start again this year. “I have seen the hand-off of the paraglider to the kayakers. It’s mad, landing in a stadium with thousands of spectators, an amazing atmosphere. It’s not least because of this incredible atmosphere that I’m back again this year.”
It is not much better for the participants descending the extreme downhill stretch with a gradient of 26%. A lapse in concentration and you soon come off your bicycle. If you survive the bumpy ride, you are cheered on euphorically by the thousands of fans at the finish (the main square in Lienz).
Glomser says, “I am a road-hog on the streets too. It doesn’t frighten me at all to go downhill at breakneck speed. I’ll be the same at the Red Bull Dolomite Man competition. You have to go at full speed but still with due caution. Some areas should not be underestimated. You just have to be a cunning road-hog.”
