The Spanish runner hopes to confirm his good season 2022 by winning the most prestigious ultra trail of the planet. Answer this August 27.
Pau Capell lives again in 2022. The Spaniard is coming back from two difficult seasons. In 2020, like most runners, the Private Sport Shop ambassador had to take his pain in patience with the successive cancellation of the main races of the season due to the epidemic. Impossible for him to put back his title acquired during his victory on the UTMB in 2019. But Capell had the idea to run the trails around Mont Blanc anyway, trying to get the course record. The film below (dubbed "Breaking 20") looks back at that solo project.
A few hours after this aborted attempt, the Spaniard admitted that he may have mismanaged the beginning of his journey. "It was the state of my legs at Praz de Fort (km 120), in Switzerland, that made me realize that I may have pushed too hard in the first 80 km. I was ten minutes ahead of my projections at the beginning of the course. I paid for it, it was a mistake, even though I thought I could run at that speed at that point. In truth, if I could change one thing about the course it would be this: I would start slower."
Even if he finally failed to break the record in 2020, Pau Capell has never given up the idea of returning to this legendary race to make his mark. Unfortunately, the year 2021 was full of obstacles for the Spanish ultra-trailer runner who had to deal with numerous injuries. He had a meniscus operation in July 2021 and was never able to get back in shape to perform at the UTMB. Cautious, he even preferred to withdraw a few days before the start of the event.
So 2022 has sounded like a return to form for the Spanish rider. Like every year, he unveiled at the beginning of the season a busy program of 12 races, two training camps and a personal challenge on the GR221 in Mallorca, to close 2022. A season format identical to the one he achieved in 2019 during his best year in competition. And proof that Capell is off to a good start this season, he first signed a promising second place behind Pablo Villa in his first competition in the Transgrancanaria (128 km) before winning the 100-mile Patagonia Run in Argentina.
Capell then kept his form and maintained a high level of performance by completing a full month of July with two victories in one week, over shorter distances in order to prepare for the UTMB. Two events held in France that the Spaniard dominated by winning first the 50 km of the Ultra-trail Côte-d'Azur-Mercantour (finishing 33 minutes ahead of his runner-up, the Frenchman Thibault Athane) before another victory a few days later on the first edition of the Ultra trail Sud Canigou
"The Sud Canigou Ultra trail race was fun and the course was really cool," he explained after his win on his Instagram account. "I never stopped because the competition was strong with Theo Detienne (second in the event). I ran at a similar pace to what I'll be doing on the UTMB. That was the plan. I was with Theo until the 55th kilometer before I made an attack and finished alone. Now it's time for the UTMB where the competition will obviously be stronger but where the Spaniard will be one of the favorites.