By now there is a close and consolidated relationship between the sea of Salento and mountain running, so much so that the now customary stage of the Italian Mountain and Trail Running Championship at Ciolo double this year. From 23 to 25 June next the XII edition of the Ciolo Trophy, a national FIDAL event and a major sporting event of the Puglia Regionwill gather over a thousand athletes to compete for the tricolor medals on the steep cliffs overlooking the sea with the Italian Cadet and Cadet Championship for Regions and the Italian Individual and Company Master Championship, the only stage in Italy to assign 29 Italian titles in the two races. Organized by the ASD Athletics Capo di Leucaled by Eleonora d’Amore, the event has the support of the Puglia Region, Puglia Promozione and the patronage of the Municipality of Gagliano del Capo, the Municipality of Ugento, the Province of Lecce, the Regional Park Regional Natural Park Costa Otranto-Santa Maria of Leuca and Bosco di Tricase.
The Ciolo locality with its vertical walls has unique and unrepeatable characteristics so much as to be a unique place in Puglia to be able to organize a national and international mountain running event. In fact, only in that small “slice of Salento land” in the municipality of Gagliano del Capo, both FIDAL and WMRA have authorized to host and organize important mountain running events. The courses built for the competitions include very technical and demanding climbs and descents, where concentration must be maximum to move the right steps between natural stairs, steep up&downs, winding mule tracks and slippery sheep tracks.
The track of this edition valid for the Masters aged 35 to 90 will be a circuit of 11,650 meters over two laps with departure and arrival from the historic center of Gagliano del Capo and will have a difference in height of 520 meters positive and as many 520 meters negative, but with the introduction compared to the other editions of 500 linear meters of pure entertainment on the “Path of the Cipolliane”, a “single track” overlooking the sea. The route for the Cadets is different, more focused on the “Up” and almost all uphill: they will start from the Ciolo Bridge and arrive at the finish line in the village, with 3,100 meters for the former and 2,050 for the latter.
The competing teams will come from all over Italy, with the veteran teams and the big names in mountain running ready to fight for the Italian flag. To defend the title for the team classification the Brescia Paratico Athletics who in 2022 won the championships in the men’s and women’s fields, but the competition will be very high. The men to beat, the winners of the title in 2022, are Gabriele Del Longo of the Calalzo Atletica Cadore walkers group, the blue mountain runner Fabio Ruga of La Recastello Radici Group and Moreno Giulio Dalmasso of Podistica Buschese, while for the women it will be necessary to remove the medal gold to Chiara Bonassi and silver to Monica Vagni, both from Atletico Paratico, and to Angela Serena from Atletica Montichiari. The formations of the representative Cadets have not yet been issued, who remain young and growing and who look out on the national scene to understand if they can be the future champions of blue mountain running. The Apulian representative has chosen to train in these days on the race course, proving themselves and their athletic preparation, as well as the desire to confirm the investment in the diversification of the young athletes’ skills, also through mountain running. The favorites are the representatives of the great Alpine regions: Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto in primis.
The intense program will see the arrivals of the representatives as early as 23 June and will kick off on Saturday 24 June with the presentation of the representatives, which will be followed by a promotional competition in the Beginners category M/F and in succession Girls/i. After the transfer to the Ciolo inlet, the starting line for the Italian Cadet and Cadet Mountain Running Championship by Regions will see the start at 18.00 with the Cadets and at 18.30 for the Cadets. At 19.00 it will be time for an important technical seminar, “Let’s bring the mountain to the sea: training tools for mountain running”, which will deal with the strategic characteristics of training for mountain and trail running athletes, who find very favorable conditions in this stretch of coast. The evening will close with the tricolor awards. Sunday 25 June will be the time for the Italian Mountain Running Championship Individual and Club Masters with staggered departures from the Town Hall. At the end for all the inevitable pasta party and the awards with the assignment of titles.
The wild and protected nature of the Costa Otranto-Santa Maria di Leuca and Tricase Wood Regional Nature Park it will be the backdrop to the initiative offering a show of itself and of the hundreds of athletes who will move and battle in the technical ups and downs of the fjord, in the inland sheep tracks and on the renewed paths. Precisely these paths are a strong point of the unique natural wonders in the world, which attract more and more tourists to discover Salento through the hiking experience and the sport of trail running. The most famous recently reported usable for the public is the Path of the Cipolliane, a journey of 2.5 km of which 500 meters inserted within the layout of the Championship, an ancient walkway used for the transport of goods and salt overlooking the crystal clear waters, which allowed its old visitors to reach the Ciolo beach and a little further north the small port of Novaglie. In just over an hour it can be covered entirely and allows the discovery of a breathtaking landscape. Others are the paths of the Park that are directly accessible and connected and are the Sentiero del Ciolo, the Sentiero Grotta Azzurra and the Sentiero delle Vie del Sale, all pleasantly suitable for tourist hiking but also for more experienced runners.