Dog various facts

16th edition of La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc

La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc

In parallel with the main race, three trophies (reduced format races over 2-3 days) will take place:

The Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc is one of the last playgrounds for these White Sea sailors in search of the absolute. The Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc is also the story of a dream. The dream of a great adventure which would cross our Alpine massifs whereas the standard of this sport which is the mushing, for decades, was to run on frozen expanses with little relief.

The 16th edition of La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc , which has been, since its first edition in January 2005, the annual dog sled event in Europe, will take place from January 11 to 22, 2020.

Credit: Vincent Piccerelle

55 mushers and their 500 athlete dogs from all over Europe (France, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Spain) will take part in this most demanding stage race in an alpine setting unique in the world, 400km long with 13,000m of elevation gain. They will set off for 12 days of racing, 10 stages, will cross 20 stations, towns and villages where more than 50,000 spectators will be expected this year.

It is in Samoëns, on Saturday 11/01, the prologue to the 16th edition of La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc will be launched with an afternoon full of entertainment.

The first step Giffre Mountains – Grand Massif will be given from Morillon on Sunday 12/01 . The race will then cross the stations of Praz de Lys – Sommand on 01/13 , Les Gets on 01/14 and Megève on 01/15.

The race will stage three days in Tarentaise with a stage in Pralognan-la-Vanoise on 01/16 and two new unpublished stages To Valmorel on 01/17 and Peisey-Vallandry on 01/18.

It will end in Haute Maurienne Vanoise , historic home of the race, with three stages over 4 days: Bessans-Bonneval-sur-Arc on 01/19 with a mass-start departure, Aussois on 01/20 and the mythical stage of the bivouac in Val Cenis over two days on 21 and 22/01 then will end with a big closing ceremony.

The Croquetteland Trophy from January 12 to 14: 10 mushers, 3 stages, and 100km
The Eukanuba Trophy from January 18 to 19: 10 mushers, 2 stages, and 70km
The Rhône-Alpes Caisse d’Epargne Trophy from January 20 to 22: 10 mushers, 2 stages including a night bivouac, and 120km.

The Trophies allow young mushers (by experience) to test their team and their own physical condition on a few stages of La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc in order, perhaps, to line up on the starting line of a future edition.

Credit: Vincent Piccerelle

The sports platform

The 2020 edition of La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc has a superb mushers platter in store for us. The competition promises to be extremely tough, perhaps even more so than in 2019, where the race was exciting to follow until the last kilometers of the last stage (with less than 2mn of difference between the 1st and the 2nd).

The best teams of European hounds will once again be present at this 16th edition. The French Rémy Coste, triple winner and title holder, will have a lot to do if he wants to become the first four-time winner of the race. His runner-up in 2019, the Spaniard Iker Ozkoidi, is back with, as a bonus, last year’s experience. He will be a formidable competitor for victory. These 2 mushers will have to face a real German armada: Heinrich Winter and Alfred Ulrich will be there; we will also have to rely on very experienced rookies and former Alpentrail winners such as Volkmar Stuber and Ullrich Kuhn, but also Detlef Oyen and Winfried Kriegel.

This next edition is also marked by the presence of numerous teams of Siberian huskies, notably with Jean Combazard on La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc who will play for the title of best Nordic team.

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