We eagerly watched the neck-and-neck battle between Özgür Sancak and Ali Kansu in this year's İznik Ultra 160K race, lasting for 20 hours. With multiple lead changes throughout the long night and cloudy day, Ali Kansu pulled ahead again in Derbent and became the 2023 champion with a time of 20:20:46. Özgür Sancak and Ali Düztaş took the second and third steps of the podium, respectively, just like they did in 2022. Duygu Demir was the only female participant who completed the race and became the women's champion. Out of 28 starters, 16 managed to finish the race. Mehmet Güven from Turkey and Mehdi Yousefi from Iran were the last two participants to complete the circuit around the lake, with a time of 32 hours and 27 minutes.
In the Mountain Marathon, which was run as a 50K race, Oğuzhan Emre Singer took the lead from the beginning and never let go, winning with a time of 4 hours and 10 minutes. Vlademir Luganskiy from Russia came in second, while Aliakbar Jalalifard from Iran and Wei Shi from China battled for the third place, with Aliakbar ultimately reaching the podium. In the women's competition, the leader changed near the entrance of Derbent, with Natalia Mamaeva from Russia pulling ahead. Her compatriot Maria Kolpakova finished second, and Inna Dalkıran completed the podium.
The 25K race held on Sunday this year witnessed record-breaking performances. If the top 11 male runners had participated last year, any one of them could have won! Russian runner Navil Shaimukhametov took the lead from the early meters and became the champion with a time of 1:41:13, eight minutes ahead of his compatriot Sergei Milykh. Mehmet Baş from Turkey completed the podium. In the women's category, Russian runner Ekaterina Troshanova broke the women's course record with a time of 1:57:22. Ayşegül Akdoğan finished second and Zeynep Ötegen came in third.
In the Çamdibi 14K race, defending champion Metin Bozkurt tried to maintain his title but came in second behind Simon McCrohan from Great Britain. Ömer Altun won the bronze medal, and all three runners finished faster than the winning time from the previous year! In the women's race, the podium was completed by Itır Atadiyen, Nesrin Acay, and Svetlana Kaya. The 5K and children's races were also completed with great enthusiasm.
Despite the earthquake disaster and the absence of popular races organized this year, the İznik Ultra held during the month of Ramadan was nearly as crowded as in 2022. The organization, which has started preparations for the year 2024, aims to announce the date and open registrations in May.
You can access the race results and digital certificates from the results page, and personal photos from aksiyonfotograflari.com. We continue to share selected photos on our Instagram and Facebook pages.
