Noor van der Veen has followed up her incredible record-breaking trek across the Pyrenees by becoming only the second woman in history to complete the gruelling Tor des Géants inside the 80-hour mark.
She crossed the Italian Alps in a stunning time of 79:34:30 to not only win the 330-kilometre women’s race, but also stamp her authority as one of the sport’s leading female competitors.
Her dominant win in the Valle d’Aosta was made all the more remarkable by the fact that just 53 days earlier, she had been celebrating in the Mediterranean Sea, having successfully completed her ‘brutal’ 731-kilometre Fastest Known Time bid through the France-Spain mountain range.
Severe illness and sleep depravation
With eight FKTs to her name on a series of challenging routes across varying European terrains, the Dutch climber-turned-athlete overcame severe illness and sleep deprivation to complete the Pyrenean Haute Route in just 10 days, 11 hours and 38 minutes from July 13 to July 23.
Running for up to 18 hours a day across tricky mountain paths and coping with a staggering elevation gain of 45,673 metres, she completed the equivalent of 16 marathons in setting a new FKT for a supported trek from the Atlantic Ocean right across to the Mediterranean Sea.
In a display of sheer strength and unwavering willpower, van der Veen pushed her body to the limit, through ever-increasing thresholds of endurance and pain, to complete what has to go down as a truly incredible achievement.
Indeed, such was her monumental effort that at one point – with the athlete suffering from severe dehydration and exhaustion after picking up a bug from drinking mountain water – her team were so worried that they almost rushed her to hospital for treatment.
However, the 32-year-old from Arnhem clearly has incredible powers of recovery, and was not only able to complete her Pyrenean challenge, but she then lined up at Courmayeur for the Tor des Géants on September 14th, with very few expecting her to even challenge, let alone storm to victory and break the 80-hour mark.
Having started off slowly, staying in the rear and letting her fellow competitors lead the way, she began to creep up the rankings as they approached the 50-kilometre mark. Almost unnoticed, amid a string of dropouts, she soon found herself within sight of the two leaders, Lisa Borzani and Natalie Taylor.
Chasing down Hartmuth’s record
Once they were caught, however, she never looked back, stretching out in a thunderous manner and moving two hours clear of her closest rivals. Indeed, at one point it looked as though she might beat the course record of Katharina Hartmuth, who finished the 2024 race in 79:10:40 – but she ended up missing that target by just 24 minutes.
Talking to Gazzetta Matin after the race, van der Veen said: “I forgot what the actual record was, but I knew that she was the only woman to have ever gone under 80 hours because I was super excited last year when she achieved that.
“I also remembered that she had talked about her race and said that she had a really rough time, so I knew it was going to be tough. Execution in these kinds of races makes all the difference in the world, and I made a conscious decision to take the lead in the later stages of the race and tried to burn as little energy as possible before the 200 kilometres mark.
“I just wanted to take it super easy, not rush, take care of myself, but also stay in the mix a little bit. Then, at some point we were looking around at how the other girls were doing and we decided it was the right moment to push. When I caught up with Lisa Borzani, I realised I could win.
Taking on ‘the big and the dramatic’
“It’s the first time for me running a race at this distance. You always have a plan, but you never know what you’re really capable of until you actually do it. I wanted to run between 90 and 80 hours, but also try to see if I could be as close to 80 as possible. And I, of course, knew that if you can run 80 hours, you might win.”
With a list of achievements that also include wins at the season-opening UTMB Arc of Attrition event this year, the Kaiserkrone Marathon Trail in 2024, and the Valmalenco Ultradistance Trail in 2022, van der Veen has quickly become a leading name in FKT and ultra-distance events.
In a YouTube film of her recent Pyrenees trek – which has been embedded below – she speaks of wanting to ‘find her limits’, while members of her support crew describe her as ‘mentally super-strong’ and always looking to take on the ‘big and the dramatic’.
“So far, ultrarunning for me had been something individual, but I was really curious to find out how far I could push my body with a strong support crew,” explains Noor regarding her PHR efforts. “I can honestly say that this wouldn’t have been possible without them. It’s also their FKT, something we all did together from beginning to end. I was just one member of that team.”
Whatever comes next for van der Veen, you can bet it won’t be easy.
