F20-39 Ascent: Gibson dominates, final climb reshapes the podium

• Anna Gibson, 43:15 — fastest women's split on the KT 22→Finish climb, winning the F20-39 field by 3:43 over Erin Moyer (46:58).
• Final climb drama: Kendall Kramer posted the 2nd-fastest women's split on KT 22→Finish to move from 5th to 3rd (48:14), while Sydney Petersen — 4th-fastest on that same stretch — slipped from 4th to 4th, holding on by just 8 seconds.
• Gibson doubles up: She also finished 6th among women in the 23K — making her one of the weekend's standout multi-race performers.
• 27 finishers completed the F20-39 race across a course ranging from 6,257 to 8,845 ft, with temperatures reaching 70°F under overcast skies.

Anna Gibson, 27, from Teton Village, WY, turned in a commanding performance from wire to wire. Holding the top women's position throughout, she sealed the win with the fastest women's split on the KT 22→Finish climb — the race's defining final push — crossing in 43:15 at an 11:59/mi average. That's a 3:43 gap over runner-up Erin Moyer, a margin that speaks to how decisively Gibson controlled this race. What makes the result even more remarkable: she had already raced the 23K at this same event, finishing 6th among women there. Backing that up with a dominant Ascent win is the kind of double that earns its own headline.

Moyer (46:58) held the women's 2nd-place spot throughout and reinforced it on the final climb with the 3rd-fastest women's split on KT 22→Finish — a strong, composed run from the Washoe Valley, NV native who also raced the Ascent in a prior edition, finishing 6th. Behind her, the podium battle was genuinely gripping. Kendall Kramer, 23, from Anchorage, AK, arrived at KT 22 sitting 5th among women, then unleashed the 2nd-fastest women's closing split to rocket to 3rd in 48:14. Sydney Petersen (48:22, Crested Butte, CO) had the 4th-fastest women's split on that stretch and fought hard, but Kramer's surge was just enough — 8 seconds separating them at the line.

Jenna Gigliotti (48:53, Amherst, MA) rounded out the top five with the 6th-fastest women's closing split, holding 6th place among women to the finish. The rest of the field spread across a roughly 13-minute window from 6th through 20th, with Rena Schwartz (49:26), Hali Hafeman (49:47), and Sam Lewis (49:57) clustered tightly in the sub-50-minute range. At altitude between 6,200 and nearly 9,000 feet, every second of that closing climb carried real weight — and the women who ran it fastest wrote the story of this race.