When Amy Rusiecki’s checked bag never made it to Portugal, her teammate Kristin Loiko didn’t miss a beat, and by the end of the 64 km SKYULTRA, the two Vermonters had shared supplies, poles, and a historic finish.
The 2026 Masters Skyrunning World Championships concluded on October 4 with its final discipline, the SKYULTRA, in São Pedro do Sul, Portugal. The race was held as part of the Pisão Extreme and drew 175 athletes from 15 countries. They faced a highly technical 64 km course with 5,700 meters of vertical climb.
Country Rankings
🥇 Portugal won the overall country title, a hat-trick of gold for the third year running.
🥈 United Kingdom took second, earning its first-ever Masters silver medal.
🥉 Japan rounded out the podium with bronze.
Vermont’s Kristin Loiko and Amy Rusiecki represented the United States and completed the grueling course, becoming the first American women to compete at the ISF Masters World Championships.
Amy reflected on the experience:
“This race was a fun adventure - humbling to run on the challenging terrain that this course covered. However, it was incredible to race head-to-head against national team members from other countries - the often wordless connection with folks representing countries from around the world were some of my favorite memories.
I also need to share that Kristin truly put the ‘team’ in Team USA...my checked bag never made it to Portugal, but Kristin was an incredible teammate and shared her supplies so that we could both be successful. She even gave me one of her poles about 20k into the race - so we each traversed with 1 pole for the last 2/3rd of the event. That’s the spirit of Team USA to me - we were in it together and supported each other through the finish line.”
Congratulations to Kristin and Amy on a historic first for US Skyrunning!
Thank you to First to the Finish for supplying uniforms to The US Skyrunning World Championship Team!
First to the Finish has graciously offered to supply custom sublimated race uniforms and warmups to the US Skyrunning Team to represent at the Skyrunning World Championships in La Gomera, Spain, September 18-20th.
“Thank you to Austin Viano and The FTTF Crew for their generous support and work to custom craft uniforms for our 2026 Championship Team,” said coach Ryan Kerrigan
“It’s been a whirlwind of a skyrunning year so far and a lot of a work. It can be difficult to see the impact we’re having. Support from FTTF for uniforms is really encouraging and shows that we’re not the only ones that know skyrunning is on the rise…”
Whether you’re a coach or a run club leader consider First to the Finish for your next uniform order.
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