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Iker Orkoidi aspires to repeat the victory in La Pirena which will start the 24th of January

Iker Orkoidi, the musher sponsored by Ternua, and the winner of the last edition, aspires to repeat the victory of the Pirena race, which will start on sunday 24th of January. The inhabitant of Pamplona accumulates records which converts him into one of the most experienced mushers of the international view. Besides the victoy of Pirena in 2009, he was second in the edition of 2005, and runner-up of the Europe ESDRA in 2007.

The Nova Icària beach of Barcelona, will be the venue of the Sunday 17 mass presentation of the competitors – dogs, women and men – of the newest edition of Pirena, the sled dog race over the Pirineos in 14 stages.

Alfter that, they will follow Formigal, Candanchú, Baqueira, Andorra,etc. and the 6th of February in La Molina, it will be a beautiful race of more than 330 kms, where there will be night stages. Pirena will have the participation of 40 teams of various countries, and 300 dogs.

20 years of white crossing

Starting on Sunday, Pirena will celebrate its 20th edition. It was in 1991, when a handful of adventure ‘crazies’ began this race with the leadership of the actor Pep Parés, nowadays  devoted to the mushing . He remembers the beginning: “On the first edition we were 13 competitors and 17 people in the organization; today we increase these numbers five times. All the sleighs were run by Nordic dogs, and we move from east to west, and today it’s backwards. Pirena had a huge impact from the first time with a big explosion of husky dogs in Spain”. Before, it was only possible to race with Nordic dogs (huskies, malamutes and samoyedos), and nowadays any breed can race.

In these two decades Pirena has been consolidated as the great mushing venue of south Europe.

Source: Diario Vasco