More than 450 expected at Saturday's Formentera All Round Trail

Foto presentació FARTThis Saturday marks the fifth year of the Formentera All Round Trail (FART), a footrace with an expected participation of more than 450. The Formentera Council's head of sports, Jordi Vidal, unveiled details on the event at a press conference this morning. Participation in the FART has grown exponentially since the race first started a few years ago—from 50 runners to nearly 500 today. However, as Vidal pointed out, despite an exploding popularity, the FART is intended for experienced runners only.

The footrace follows a 72.5-kilometre circuit around the Formentera coastline. Runners will set out at 8 a.m. from la Savina. For those who are a bit less experienced, there are two shorter routes as well: the Half Round Formentera Trail, a 40.5-km run that leaves els Arenals at 11:30 a.m., and the Tros de FART (roughly translated as 'a little bit of FART'), which runs 21 km and has participants leaving the starting blocks in Es Caló at one midday. Five refreshment stations will be set up along the routes and all three competitions share a finish line in the la Savina port. The maximum run time is 13, 9.5 and 4 hours respectively. The event is sponsored by the Formentera Council (CiF), the Grup Esportiu Espalmador and Elitechip.

Athletes can sign up to participate at www.elitechip.net until Thursday, 25 February at 8 p.m. Numbers can be picked up in the organisation tent on Friday between 5 and 9 p.m. in la Savina. Also that evening, Pere Serra, a psychologist and specialist in this kind of competition and a specialist group from Eivissa will lead a conference on the so-called 'ultra trails' in general and one such trail in particular: the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). Saturday morning at eight organisers will begin handing out numbers to participants of the two shorter races. Later on, runners will be transported to els Arenals for the Half Round and Es Caló for the Tros de FART.

Vidal thanked all the offices that had played a part in the organisation of this year's race, including the port authority of the Balearic Islands and the Govern Balear ministry of the environment. The councillor also seized the opportunity to highlight the important work of the Formentera local police, the Guardia Civil, civil protection services and other volunteers that have all signed on to ensure the race takes place safely. Saying he hoped everyone «gets into the spirit» and «gets an eyeful of Formentera's beautiful coastline», Vidal gushed about the FART's environmental commitment as well and reminded runners that anyone caught tossing rubbish along the way will be penalised. Also at this morning's presentation were Daniel de la Dueña, CiF department of sport staff specialist, event organiser Vicent Rosselló and Pere Serra.