Runners take to Moldova’s cellars

Racerunners were down in one of Moldova’s famously long and cavernous wine cellars for a 10-kilometre dash – with a difference.

Around 200 runners from several countries including the US and Finland raced through part of the enormous wine cellars in the Moldovan town of Cricova at the end of last month.

Dubbed ‘Wine Run’, participants had to wear head torches to help them see around parts of the course but being close to 100 metres underground still proved disorientating for many.

Even the winner, who completed the course in just 30 minutes said afterwards that he ran 500m further than he needed to because he got a little lost.

He also spoke to a local television station of the difficulties of running underground, such as the high humidity, while another runner said: ‘You could smell the wine. This makes things more complicated – it is more difficult to breathe.”

As well as being held underground, the event’s organisers had (for reasons known only to themselves) arranged for someone dressed as the Grim Reaper – with scythe – to “hunt” runners through the tunnels while haunted house sound effects were played through speakers along the course.

The Cricova wine cellar is 120km (75 miles) long and holds around one million bottles of wine. The oldest parts of the cellar date back to the 15^th century when the limestone was quarried to help build the Moldovan capital of Chisnau, 15km away. The quarry was extended over the centuries and finally turned into a cellar for the Cricova Winery in the 1950s.

Legend has it that Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gargarin, once got lost in the tunnels for two days.

The country’s biggest cellar is that belonging to the Milestii Mici winery. It is 200km (120 miles) long and holds nearly two million bottles.