Olympus Mythical Trail 2023

• Trail

01/07/2023

The OLYMPUS MYTHICAL TRAIL, is a mountain superconducting racing test that has largely supported features. Mount Olympus and its paths are one of the top racing fields, for a number of reasons, such as morphology and altitude but also the design of the route, which presents difficulties up to its end, as well as the overnight start. OMT’s rationale is based on pure racing effort, as understood in the context of mountain racing. The race has tough features: high climb altitude, high percentage of trails, high altitude, tough terrain, prolonged exposure of athletes to alpine and altitude, unpredictable weather conditions, long running in dark conditions, unevenly uphill climbing. The support of athletes in the race is dense, so that athletes can utilize every bit of strength in the effort of completing or even achieving the best possible performance. The purpose of the event is to establish a top reference ultra trail race, with a high level of difficulty and a strong mountaineering character, worthy of a mountain symbol for the global community.

The Olympus Mythical Trail emerged more as a necessity on a iconic mountain, like Mount Olympus, in early 2010, and it took two years until it was implemented. The “mountain of the gods” used to host short and medium distance (marathon) races until then but was missing from its slopes and peaks, an ultra-trail sporting event. The development of mountainous ultra in Greece had begun a few years earlier. and the community of athletes was constantly growing, so the idea of ​​an ultra-trail at Olympus was finding more and more fertile ground, until a group of friends in Litochoro took the initiative to create the first ultra race.

The intense and steep terrain of Mount Olympus puts a number of constraints on the design of a long route. Fortunately, however, the dense network of trails in the central and southern parts of the mountain provide many alternatives. Thus, the plot was based on the logic of a circular path, which is de facto forced to cross the complex of the highest mountain peaks, because this is the only way to continue the path, which will eventually be able to erase a large arc, encircling it. southern, smooth piece of mountain. After its first two years (2012, 2013), the race underwent a major change of course the first few kilometers of its course to become a loop track, with Litochoro a common starting and ending point!

More information here: https://www.omt100.com/brief/