The Via di Annibale Sky Marathon is a tough race, perhaps the highest in Europe with a 5 km stretch at 3000mt of altitude and its highest point at 3300mt.
The athletes, or perhaps it would be better to say the warriors, arrive from all over the world, they set off at dawn along routes in the mountains of Usseglio in the Valleys of Lanzo, almost running along what was the route followed by the army lead by Hannibal in 218 BC across the Alps, at Colle dell’Autaret, with elephants, infantrymen and horsemen, to reach Rome.
It is a marathon held in the high mountains on a route classified as “an itinerary for expert hikers that unwinds almost entirely on forest roads, mule tracks, paths at high altitude and glacial moraines and snowfields”.
Tough and fascinating, also a 42 km Sky Marathon and a 32 km Sky Race will be held, in spectacular mountain scenery, to be covered semi-autonomously.