Erwee’s Italian Job took more than three days
ULTRA-RUNNER Tiaan Erwee has conquered the international Tor des Geants, finishing fourth overall.
Running a superbly-paced race through the Italian Alps, on a course of 330km with over 24km of elevation gain, the Guernsey-based South African featured very strongly in a field largely headed by sponsored trail runners.
Action started on Sunday at noon and it was not until Wednesday evening that Erwee would finally finish his racing rigours.
Erwee’s overall time for the demanding course was 80hrs 18min. 24sec., beating his target by several hours.
Starting with the goal of finishing before Thursday, requiring a sub 84-hour time, he took off at a relatively controlled pace and moved through the field in expert fashion.
His position of 35th at nearly five hours became top-15 after around a day’s racing and he continued to pick off runner after runner.
By the time Erwee had left the final major stop at Ollomont mid Wednesday morning, he lagged Team E-Rock’s Oliviero Bosatelli by nearly 10 hours and the eventual third-placed finisher by two-and-a-half.
A particularly strong homeward leg allowed him to cut into the gaps significantly, even if he could not catch the widely-separated top trio.
Bosatelli won for a second time in 72-37-13 with second and third taking just over 77 and 79 hours respectively.
