This article is not intended to provide a chronicle of the Skymasters 2025; we believe that moment has passed. Moreover, several specialised media have already produced excellent coverage, far better than anything we could write ourselves.

Publishing this article in February 2026, almost three months after the race, may seem contradictory, but that is the reality. Closing an edition of Dements, like many sporting events, is not as simple as taking down tape and storing finish-line arches. There is much more behind it.

Of course, most matters related to the race are settled within a few days, but some—especially financial ones—take far longer than desirable to be finalized.

Dements could be described as a kind of collective movement. Volunteers, many of whom have nothing to do with races or mountains but who love their territory, help the event grow until, in just eight editions, it becomes a World Cup final in Skyrunning. A huge challenge for people who do not make a living organising events, but who prove that passion can outweigh any professional structure.

Come on: on Sunday 9 November, at around 14:00, the last runner of the Mitja d’Aín arrives, Prize ceremony awarded, the finish area is dismantled, the Sunday volunteer lunch takes place… We keep packing up and, around 20:00, those of us who have stayed until the very end are at the multiusos hall in Eslida, eating leftovers from Saturday’s dinner and having the last beers of the weekend. Exhausted, but very satisfied with the work done and with how the Skymasters 2025 went—our second consecutive World Cup final, the final of the Merrell Skyrunner® World Series. Not bad at all for a group of people who are unpaid, who from first to last work entirely as volunteers, in two villages: one with 800 inhabitants and the other with 150, with a 100% volunteer team.

The next day, Monday, everyone returns to their workplace, juggling the whole week to continue collecting everything and returning it to its original state: vehicles, municipal spaces, medical reports, payments to suppliers (as far as possible)… and so it goes on for almost three weeks, until almost everything is back in place, as if nothing had happened here. Invisible work, but essential.

What you don’t see: the B-side

Dements is not a company. There is no financial cushion. Yes, there are registrations, collaborators and sponsors, but almost half of the budget depends on public administrations. And this is where the difficulties begin: the money takes time to arrive, and that forces us to seek private financing. The result? Loans guaranteed with personal assets. A situation that, at certain moments, can make organising Dements feel like an act of faith, even making you resent much of what it represents.

One of the most important aspects when you get involved in something as big as a world final is paying the fees required to belong to a circuit, travel expenses, prize money, plus the usual race costs such as contracted services, accommodation, suppliers and a thousand other expenses, all of which must be paid once the race is over.

You keep paying as long as the money lasts, but there comes a point when the income from public administrations is delayed again and again, with the added condition that, in order for these grants to be validated and not reduced after the corresponding audit, all related expenses must be paid before the end of the calendar year. Since many of these grants—reason unknown—arrive late, and some even after the end of the year, there is no alternative, if we want to continue, but to seek financing solutions as simple as those any person uses when they want to buy something but lack the funds: a loan. And how do you guarantee it? The answer is obvious: with your personal assets, because no financial institution accepts a club’s agreements with public administrations as collateral. That’s the situation.

We have fulfilled our obligations, and everything that had to be paid before the end of the year has been paid.

And why does this edition “end” today? Because today, at last, we have received the results of the anti-doping controls and can proceed with the payment of the race prize money, even though a significant amount is still pending from public administrations. But it’s fine: we will continue paying interest until we can cancel the credit line.

By the way, the current edition, 2026, began as soon as the 2025 edition ended, and without having closed Dements 2025, we already have a great deal of work done—and much more ahead.

Obviously, no one forces us to continue or to organise the event. We are aware of the difficulties, the payment deadlines, all the complications we will face, plus those caused by questionable individuals who, under the guise of protecting the territory, seek only to profit by sabotaging non-profit events. We accept it, we know how complex it is, but it is far from pleasant.

Dements is much more than a race. It is proof that shared passion can turn two small villages into a global epicentre of mountain sport. It is a cultural engine, because it mobilises communities, strengthens local identities and projects the territory internationally. And it is also a sporting engine, because it brings the best runners in the world to our mountains.

And yes, we are making a clear criticism: without agile and committed institutional support, projects like Dements would live in constant balance between sporting success and economic precariousness. In fact, they might not even exist; they would be unsustainable. Entry fees would need to be at least three or four times higher. Alongside this criticism—always constructive—we also express our deep gratitude to the public administrations that choose to invest public resources in sporting events in rural areas, in an effort to consolidate their future and find ways to ensure, if not growth, at least their survival as villages.

But the reality is also clear: Dements has shown that collaboration and passion can overcome any obstacle. And that, ultimately, is what makes it—without ever forgetting that we are a village race—much more than a sporting event.

Being the Skymasters for the third consecutive year is, for us, a dream come true, an enormous responsibility, but not only towards the world elite of skyrunning. It is also towards every runner who signs up, whatever their name and wherever they come from. That was the reason we started Dements back in 2014, and whatever we may become in the future, we are certain that we will organise Dements with the same enthusiasm, energy and nerves before giving the start on that November Saturday at 7:30 in the morning.

Salut, muntanya… i Dements!!!!