In the Basque Country, the Skyrhune stops to say no to “trail business” – Libération

One last for “close the loop” and leave a trail model that they “don’t want to (slow) endorse anymore”. In the Basque Country, the Skyrhune, a 21-kilometer race, with a difference in altitude of 1,700 meters to cover in 4 hours and 10 minutes maximum, on the slopes of the Rhune, is stopping definitively after ten years of existence. A cocktail of sporting performance, crazy atmosphere and simplicity, which brings together 600 Elite and amateur runners for a final start this Saturday, September 21. For Nicolas Darmaillacq, creator of the race with a handful of friends in 2014, the galloping professionalization of the trail world leads to the end of a “village race” as is the Skyrhune, with values ​​opposed to those of the «trail business». According to him, this offbeat race can no longer comply with the budgetary requirements required by the evolution of the discipline, caught in the trail of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), “locomotive that crushes everything in its path”.

Since its creation in 2014, the Skyrhune budget has tripled to today reach 90,000 euros, “without increasing the number of runners”, explains the organizer. And it’s not the riders who are expensive, he says, but the services. “There are a whole bunch of professions that are developing around racing, in video or images for example, and the pie must be bigger because everyone wants to make a living from their passion”. Like the speaker, a volunteer ten years ago who has since made it his profession, or the videographers who have replaced good souls and their telephones, and who now have pricing requirements. “I’m not criticizing that we want to make a living from it, but it has consequences and without a patron, it’s the rider who pays and I refuse that,” slices Nicolas Darmaillacq. Unthinkable for him to increase the price of the registration fee for the race, already set at 35 euros. “We already discussed it at length the first time, six years ago when we went from 15 to 25 euros, but there is no question of going even further, sport must be accessible to all, not become a CSP+ privilege.” Between 2018 and 2024, according to a comparison drawn up by the specialized site Outside.fr, the price of the bib increased by 60% for the UTMB, now at 400 euros, by 23% for the Diagonale des fous, on the island of Reunion, or 28% for the Great Pyrenees raid.

“Unstoppable bidding war”

It’s this “unstoppable one-upmanship”observed by Nicolas Darmaillacq and his co-organizers, which pushed them to question their event over the past two years. Nicolas Darmaillacq expresses his annoyance with a sport now “consumes». «What drives me crazy is that this Saturday, we will have 80 non-runners, people who use the bib and who are not even going to start because they register for races knowing very well that they will not be able to do them all and will sell their bibs. And for us, besides that, we will have said no to a young person who will have been preparing for months because we no longer have space”enrages Nicolas Darmaillacq. For Maud Combarieu, who knows the Skyrhune well having run it six times and being the holder of the downhill speed record, “professionalization is good because there is now a real respect for the Elite runner, paid for his performances, but the average runner no longer has much room and that is not at all what we want to achieve go.” Although she regrets the loss of the Skyrhune, she shares this popular vision.

Thibaut Baronian, French trail champion in 2023 and professional runner, also experienced the beginnings of the Skyrhune, which he won twice in 2016 and 2017. The one who came 2nd in the 90 km of Mont-Blanc end of June, not yet recovered, will be on the slopes of the Rhune, but to ensure supplies for his comrades from the Salomon team. “I understand that the organizers want to preserve the soul of the race and it is to their credit to remain on ten editions done as they wanted, because here we are really in the spirit of the trail and you feel that there is no business behind it”, he comments. Among the organizers’ models, the neighboring races of the Spanish Basque Country, known for the fervor of their public, like the legendary Zegama-Aizkorri, the last edition of which was won for the eleventh time by Kilian Jornet at the end of May. It also increased its prices, with a bib at 75 euros and the establishment of a draw for 1 euro. “Not a detail when we know that 14,000 people are trying their luck,” relief Maud Combarieu.

For the organizers of the Skyrhune, two trail worlds are now emerging, with “the big races and all the money they drain”and the small local races which will not disappear for all that. “But the problem is that the first ones will no longer be accessible to everyone, deplores Nicolas Darmaillacq. Why gain weight at all costs? The UTMB today has 11,000 runners and 50 different races. But for what purpose?”