Italy’s Nadir Maguet may already be a strong ski mountaineer, but he just had the best race of his trail running career as he took second at the 2018 Ring of Steall Skyrace. In the following interview, our first with him, Nadir talks about what his background is with both ski mountaineering and trail running, how his all-race duel went with eventual winner Kilian Jornet, and what he thinks about his future in trail running.
Be sure to read our results article for the full race story.
Nadir Maguet Post-2018 Ring of Steall Skyrace Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Bryon Powell of iRunFar here with Nadir Maguet after his second-place finish at the 2018 Ring of Steall Skyrace. Congratulations!
Nadir Maguet: Thank you.
iRunFar: It was a great race throughout. It was tight. You ran with Kilian [Jornet] the whole way.
Maguet: It was a pretty tight race. I was all the time with Kilian Jornet. Even though I race with him in the winter as well, it’s still a dream to be able to follow him in his world where he is the best. I loved the terrain. It’s my first time in Scotland. It was super-nice conditions and nice weather. The landscape is awesome. I really enjoyed the whole thing.
iRunFar: Is it fair to say that ski mountaineering is your first sport, your first love? You also run. Why?
Maguet: Yeah, even though my ‘work’ is to compete in the winter, I love both the disciplines. Actually, I have more results with running rather than ski mountaineering, but maybe in the future, it’s about growing up a little more with skiing and technique and everything. You never know, maybe in the future other bigger results like this one will come.
iRunFar: This is obviously a tremendous result—second at the Skyrunning World Championships. You do have other strong running results. You’ve run a very fast vertical kilometer—30:17?
Maguet: There’s only one Kilian, so we need time to recover. I’m competing a lot in winter, so in the summer I like to do different kinds of races especially VK because it’s faster to recover. It’s like the kind of effort that is pushing hard for 30 minutes or so and then you’re ready to go the day after.
iRunFar: It’s very similar to what you do in ski mountaineering. You push, push, push for a half an hour up a mountain. Is that something that is more familiar to you?
Maguet: Yes, both sports are really similar. You still have to push hard on the climbs and try to go as fast as you can going downhill. I’m probably better at downhill while running rather than skiing or it’s just the feeling because you get more sore in winter. Yeah, we can say they’re really similar. So running in the summer helps you for sure to prepare for the winter season.
iRunFar: Do you have any more races this season before you return to skiing?
Maguet: I will do two more big events in VK—the VK Extreme at LimoneXtreme in October, and then I’ll try to repeat myself from two years ago (the 30:17). Maybe I’ll try to break 30.
iRunFar: Do you think in the future we might see you at more Sky-distance events?
Maguet: For sure it will stay like skimo as my main sport, but I will try to do some more races with high-level races like this one. Why not? I’m not excluding this for sure.
iRunFar: Congratulations, Nadir.
Maguet: Thank you.
