Thomas Joly, Antoine Auger, Matis Leray and Candide Pralong completed the 182km loop of the Léman Lake (also known as Geneva Lake) in 8 hour and 28 minutes.

To begin, let’s refresh our memory with the best results of the four athletes. Candide Pralong is the only one who compete in traditional skiing, for the Swiss cross-country skiing team. He has competed in the last two Olympic Games. In Beijing 2022, he finished 22^nd both in the 50km freestyle and the 30km Skiathlon.

Thomas Joly, Matis Leray and Antoine Auger are all Pro Tour athletes. Auger’s personal best is a 27^th place in Vasaloppet 2019. He also won the mythic Transjurassienne twice. Leray also had a good 2021/2022 season as he finished 16^th in la Venosta Time Trial and 28th in Marcialonga. Joly’s best performance is a solid 8^th place in Birkebeinerrennet 2022, and he also won la Transjurassienne 2022.

Now that you know the athletes, we can start the story! The training session started yesterday at 5:00am in Nyon, at the home of the Swiss Olympic athlete Candide Pralong.

“We chose to leave at 5:00am so as not to suffer too much from the heat in the afternoon. In the end it was the right choice, and the trip was very well planned by Thomas. Everyone brought something to the group, it was great,” says Pralong to ProXCskiing.

“In terms of the daily organization, we took a first short break in Montreux, after 60km. Then, we have another one, a little bit longer, when Maxime Grenard joined us. Afterwards we had a lunch break by the lake, then we went to Geneva and back to Nyon. At the end of the day, we had 180km in the sun and heat, with friends. It was a great session!” says Joly.

Leray and Auger agrees: “it was a great day, we were lucky with the conditions, not too windy or too hot. And for the kilometers, when you like it, you don’t count!”

Candide also tells us about their feeding: “we drink a lot; I think this is the most important thing. We also stopped once for 25 minutes after 120km, and we wanted to eat too much at once. Afterward we felt it that it was more complicated for the digestion and everything. We realize that the food is very important, everyone must find what suits them the best: bars, sandwiches, coke, candies…”

In terms of equipment, they all used Nordeex roller skis (French brand), with resistance 3-wheels but without ‘ratchets’. The final speed is therefore slightly faster than with traditional 3-wheels but slower than with resistance 2-wheels. The average speed on the session was just over 21km/h.

Finally, Candide summed up the day as “a great experience! I think we learnt a lot about ourselves, we had a good time with a great chemistry in the group. I had a bit of a pain in my shoulder and switched to skating. The group really pushed me forward. If I had been on my own, I wouldn’t have finished. We had a great time; it was really cool.”