More than 2,100 competitors – a record – will participate this Saturday, June 29 in the 29th edition of the Foulées de la Cathédrale, organized by L’Écho Républicain and ASPTT Chartres.
Who will succeed Anaïs De Cock and Lucas Liard on the Foulées de la Cathédrale winners list? Answer this Saturday early evening.
Record de participation. Exactly how many will be on the starting line, this Saturday evening, at 8:30 p.m., gathered in front of the Chartres media library? Difficult to say precisely, but one thing is certain, the participation record for Foulées de la Cathédrale, established in 2019 with 2,100 competitors, will fall. Yesterday noon, when online registrations closed, 2,084 bibs had been sold, and as is traditionally the case, more will be sold this Saturday, ahead of the race (on-site registration 20 euros ). The good weather of the last few days undoubtedly played its role in this massive influx, as did positive word of mouth, which has allowed the peloton to grow regularly for around ten years. It has almost doubled in volume since 2012.
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Route slightly modified. For once, the competitors will not take Rue des Acacias, which usually completes the climb towards the cathedral. Work forced the organizers to slightly revise the route and send the runners towards rue au Lait and rue des Changes. A modification which does not take away much from the difficulty of the route, with the ever-challenging sequence of rue Saint-Pierre and rue Saint-Eman, with an average elevation gain of around 8%. Two loops of 4.9 km will be covered, for a total of 9.8 km.
Running: towards record participation, this Saturday, June 29, at the Foulées de la cathédrale, in Chartres
Who wins? In the absence of Hanchoise Julie Chuberre-Dodé, who preferred to line up for the Foulées du Gois, in Noirmoutier, the women’s race could once again be dominated by Anaïs De Cock, the winner of the last two editions. However, the ES Jouy-Saint-Prest graduate will not be 100% due to a knee problem. Among the outsiders, we can cite Manon Roche (Aclam), second last year, Maëva Forêt and Mariette Rotty (Lèves). Among the men, the defending champion, Lucas Liard (Aclam) will not be at the start. Some good runners will nevertheless make the trip like Flavien Jankowski (Rambouillet), third in 2023, or the so-called Saddam Hussain. This Pakistani athlete runs in the Pierrefitte jersey and is around 32” over 10 km, around thirty seconds more than Jankowski.
Romain Léger
