Yesterday’s City Marathon took place under ideal conditions, with sunshine and temperatures of around 17° Celsius, a record estimated 60 000 spectators came along to cheers on the 10 820 participants who took part in the 10 km, half marathon or full marathon races. An Englishman, Jack Wood, living in St Gallen won the marathon, and Kristin Colard from France won in the women’s category. The running day was opened by over 200 top runners from all over the world taking part in the World Military Half Marathon Championships (CISM-WM). In a fast and extremely close race, Mohamed Reda El Aaraby won in 1:01:29 hours. The 33-year-old Moroccan thus set a new course record in Lucerne.
We want to congratulate all our readers who took part in the event yesterday. You rock!
Last week 4 fake bomb threats brought the Euroairport in Basel/Mulhouse to a complete stand still. A series of bomb threats continues to keep France on tenterhooks after the imposition of the highest terror alert level. Several regional airports were temporarily evacuated on Thursday, as they had been the day before, due to bomb threats. The airports in Montpellier, Nantes, Bordeaux and Lille were also affected. Hundreds of flights had to be cancelled as a consequence.
This weekend another competition took place. The World Raclette Championships in the town of Morgins in the Wallis. In addition to Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Canada and Great Britain, where one would not expect to find raclette producers, also took part in the world championship. The cheeses were divided into three categories: Raw milk from the alp, raw milk from the dairy and other raclette cheeses. It consisted of 50 experts and consumerswho began by narrowing the selection down to 20 percent of all cheeses on offer. These selected products were then evaluated by eight internationally recognised jurors. Colour, shelf life, texture, strength, aromas – nothing was left to chance. In the raw milk cheese category, first place went to the “Le Pont” cheese dairy in Champéry (VS) and in the alpine raw milk category to the “Tanay” alp in Vouvry (VS). In the “other cheeses” category, the winner was the cheese dairy “Seiler Sélection by Wyssmüller Maître Fromager” from Giswil (OW). In all 30 000 portions of raclette were handed out over the 3 day festivity.
This year your Swiss crisps and chips will most probably be made with imported potatoes. The extreme weather has led to a real bad potato crop meaning that it will be hard for Swiss crisps and chips producers to find quality local spuds.
Talking of weather, we are now experiencing usual autumnal weather, a mix of sun, clouds and rain with temperatures not hovering much above 10° celsius.
Don’t forget that Wednesday is a day off for most in Catholic cantons, so get your shopping done by tomorrow.
