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More than 1000 master in the 12. World Master Mountain Running Championships at Buhlertal: record! - 20 May 2012

1.018 master finished the race at the 12. World Master Mountain Running Championships in Germany: never in the past editions more than one thousand runners arrived to the finish line in this Competition.
This record of runners with 802 men and 216 women at the end of the race signed the great success of this competition very well organized by LOC of Buhlertal.
The 9.4 kilometer mostly uphill course included a start on pavement through the town with a steep climb into the forested area of the mountainside with nearly 800 meters of vertical climbing. At the 11:00 a.m. start time (for category 70), temperatures were warm in the upper teens and by the final start group (35) the temperatures had reached over 20 with little breeze.

On race day, Thursday, May 17, the skies were a brilliant blue with temperatures hovering in the 60s at the men's 3:00 p.m. start time in Willer Sur Thur, France, and 50s near the 1424-meter summit of Grand Ballon.
A much different weather pattern than the previous day when temperatures were just above freezing at the summit and a fresh dusting of snow blanketed the trail.
Last year's WMRA Grand Prix Champion Arslan Ahmet, 26, Turkey, bested second-place finisher Gabriele Abate, 33, Italy, by just two seconds for the championship at La Montee du Grand Ballon.

From 32 nations from all around the World, master athletes will arrive in Bühlertal/Germany this Weekend, for the 12. World Masters Mountain Running Championships 2012.
1100 master athletes have registered for this great event. This means a new record in the entries and a further increase compared with last year's edition, in both, the number of entries and in the number of participating countries (Paluzza 2011: 1015 entries from 26 nations).
The LOC hopes to welcome more runners at the start than have ever participated in a World Masters Mountain Running Championship before.
228 of the registered starters are female and 872 male; one third of the participants come from outside of Germany; the largest starting field is registered in the M45 class, followed by M50 and M55. The starting gun will send off 227 runners together in the largest starting field, the start of the M45 / W45 class.