ABOUT ISF

The International Skyrunning Federation represents the governing authority of  skyrunning - defined as mountain running above 2,000m over extremely technical trails. Three disciplines define the sport which are not just based on distance, but vertical climb and technical difficulty:  Sky, Ultra and Vertical.

OUR HISTORY

“Skyrunning” has been around for some time.  Hundreds, even thousands of years ago mountains were negotiated out of necessity: war, religious persecution, hunting, smuggling, or just out of plain old curiosity.  The concept of running up and down mountains for fun is much newer.  Take for example the Ben Nevis Race which goes back to 1903, or the Pikes Peak Marathon which began as a bet in 1954 among smokers and non smokers.

ABOUT SKYRUNNING

From sea to sky, skyrunning spans the great outdoors, across the world’s mountain ranges…and the imagination of thousands of participants and fans. It’s a sport born in the wild, where the logic was to reach the highest peak in the shortest time from a town or village. Today it represents the peak of outdoor running defined by altitude and technicality and counts some 200 races worldwide with with around 50,000 participants from 65 countries.

QUALIFIED RACE LABEL

The International Skyrunning Federation has developed a label to recognize races with an official “stamp of approval”. The project, aimed at strongly identifying the characteristics of the sport, was approved at the General Assembly in 2017.Various factors are taken into consideration, from the basic parameters of distance, vertical climb, altitude, etc to the quality of the field, the finishing time as well as a specially developed algorithm.