The 30-year-old Swiss cyclist Robin Gemperle won the Transcontinental Race today. This marks Gemperle’s second victory in the famous and grueling self-supported ultra-cycling race. He crossed the finish line in Greece after 10 days, 8 hours, and 55 minutes, having set off from Norway roughly a week and a half ago.
Now in its twelfth edition, this year’s Transcontinental Race started last Sunday, July 19, in Trondheim, Norway. From there, participants ride approximately 4,000 kilometers and tackle tens of thousands of meters of elevation gain. While the start and finish points – Trondheim and Kalamata, Greece – are fixed, riders navigate their own routes between designated mandatory checkpoints. This year’s checkpoints included Flåm (Norway), the Tatra Mountains (Slovakia), Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Leskovik (Albania). In this fully self-supported event, the top contenders sleep barely at all, and the dropout rate is notoriously high every year.
While the frontrunners are starting to arrive – led by Gemperle – the majority of the field has either scratched or is still out on the road. Behind Gemperle, Nicolas Chatelet claimed second place with a time of 10 days, 16 hours, and 7 minutes, while Jocelyn Roth rounded out the podium in third, finishing in 10 days, 20 hours, and 45 minutes.
You can follow all the participants live here. The tracker also shows the current dropouts and just how spread out the field has become.
