Scout Adkin and Paul Machoka will be among the athletes in action when the 2025 Mountain Running World Cup season starts with the Zmeu X-Fest in Câmpulung Moldovenesc The Carpathian Mountains will provide a stunning backdrop and with some familiar names from previous World Cups taking part an exciting first classic mountain race of the season should be in store The women’s race offers a truly international mix of athletes who won last year’s women’s World Cup having claimed some big wins in last year’s competition as well as that unforgettable run at Sierre-Zinal where she finished second after an epic duel with Romanian Madalina Florea Lining up alongside Adkin will be Romanian runners Ioana Madalina Amariei who has also finished on the podium at Giir di Mont Valentine Jepkoech Rutto could be one to watch having finished fourth at the classic up and down race at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in 2023 Hana Svestkova Struzkova and Klara Ljubi could also challenge The men’s race is similarly international with a strong contingent from Italy as well as some highly competitive Kenyan runners and local Romanian talent Kenya’s Machoka finished fourth overall in last year’s World Cup with a string of consistent results and with the experience he gained last year he will be interesting to watch this year has already stood on the podium at Sierre-Zinal and finished fourth at the Mont Blanc Marathon Henri Aymonod is a name very familiar to World Cup followers with many classic race podiums in his palmares too Alberto Vender and Luca Merli are also sure to be in the mix.  young French athlete Alric Petit had an incredible 2024 including a second place at Fletta Trail Mate Dalos may challenge and Romanian athletes Istvan Szabolcs and Alexandru Husariu Ionut could enjoy some home advantage The race is a classic up and down mountain race of 19.6km with 1750m of ascent Starting from the centre of Câmpulung Moldovenesc at 650m the runners first head up to Măgura Runcului peak (1176m) before descending 400m and then climbing back up to 1129m to summit Runc From there it’s another long downhill back to Câmpulung to mark the halfway point of the race before starting to climb again to the edge of the forest followed by a short climb before the frantic dash to the finish line The race starts at 11am local time on Saturday. Live tracking is available at Zmeu X-Fest | LiveTrail®.  Por un futuro en el que los humanos vivan en armonía con la naturaleza WWF® and ©1986 Panda Symbol are owned by WWF You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.