Cory Wallace wins seven day Yak Attack in Nepal
Canadian sails over 5,416-m pass to top standings at "highest stage race on earth"
Photo by:
Cory Wallace / Instagram
After a week of battling through the thin air of Nepal’s high mountains (and against frozen shifter cables), Cory Wallace landed his fifth consecutive Yak Attack cross country stage race win. This year, the Jasper, Alta-based endurance specialist traded stage wins with Nepal’s Suraj Rana Magar over the week before taking the overall win in Kagbeni.
The Yak Attack bills itself as “The World’s Highest race,” and for good reason. Over six days, the course covers a staggering 9,000 m of ascent in 280-km of racing. That includes a race up and over a high point of 5,416 metres above sea level. For 2022, the race includes the world’s highest timed downhill, and eight-kilometre section starting from 5,146m and descending all teh way to 2,800m.
Wallace won stages two to four and the final stage in Kagbeni. Suraj Rana Magar won the opening day, a loop in Besi Sahar. He landed another stage win on stage five, the week’s high point, when Wallace’s shift cables froze in the cold high-mountain weather.
Wallace’s last Yak Attack win was back in 2019 ahead of local Roan Tamang and Squamish, B.C.’s Rhys Verner. The Kona rider stayed after to train at altitude before getting stuck in the country at the start of the pandemic. Wallace put his time there to good use, picking up on the Everesting trend of the early pandemic to Everest on the lower slopes of Everest itself to raise funds for a local charity.
RELATED: Cory Wallace’s excellent African adventure
The win in Nepal closes out a typically wild year for Wallace. 2022 started with Wallace stuck on the African continent after the Cape Epic. He used that as an opportunity to set a new FKT for the ascent up Mt. Kilimanjaro, then set of on a safari bikepacking expedition across the Serenghetti to Kenya. After returning to Canada, Wallace defended his WEMBO 24-Hour Solo World Championships title, raced the Life Time Grand Prix series and still somehow found time to squeeze the TransRockies Gravel Royale, BCBR Gravel Explorer XLT and the Brek Epic stage races into his calendar, finishing on the overall podium at Brek and the Gravel Explorer.
