Calitz defends LionHeart title

Cape Town  – Some of the country’s top trail running talent gathered on Cape Town’s Lion’s Head to compete in the third edition of Red Bull LionHeart. After making their way 4.4km in total on their way up and down the course on the mountain multiple times, it was AJ Calitz and Landie Greyling who tamed the Lion and once again took top honours. 

It was a close race in the men’s Elite Category with AJ Calitz fighting off Thabang Madiba in the final and winning in a time of 25:54, breaking his own record from last year.  Thabang completed the race just 20 seconds behind him in 26:15.

AJ Calitz, three time winner and record holder, remarked: “Red Bull LionHeart is one of my favourite races of the year and I really wanted to defend my title. I went up really strong on the climb. Running up against the wind, I knew I didn’t want Thabang in my shadow so I decided to break away against the wind and it paid off. You’ve got to back yourself on the climb.”

Female winner Landie Greyling also retained her title.

“I just love running on Lion’s Head and Red Bull LionHeart is such a fun race to be part of. I’ve got a big race next week but decided I still wanted to give it a go so I just made sure I went hard on the ups and took it easy on the downs. Although it was super windy out there, it turned out to be a nice day and a really super run for me.”

2014 saw the introduction of the Red Bull LionHeart segment on Strava – a free-for-download app available on iTunes for iPhone and Playstore for Android users. Keen trail runners were encourage to test themselves on the 3,7km segment route around the base of Lion’s Head in order to qualify for the main event.

The top 22 men and top 11 women on the Red Bull LionHeart segment leaderboard on Strava received entry into the Elite Category. Also new in 2014 was the introduction of an intermediate category consisted of men placing in positions 23-54 and women placing in positions 12-27 on the Strava leaderboard.

The Red Bull LionHeart segment remains on Strava for all trailrunning aficionados to test their prowess on Lion’s Head.

Red Bull LionHeart is proudly partnered with SAN Parks and Salomon.

AJ Calitz in action (Kolesky / Nikon / Red Bull Content Pool)

For full results please visit www.trailtag.co.za