Trofeo Sale & Saline

The Trofeo Sale & Saline is a 10 km road race held in the centre of Trapani, at the western tip of Sicily. Organised by GSD 5 Torri Fiamme Cremisi, the town's Cinque Torri sports club, it is approaching its thirtieth edition and appears on the Italian Athletics Federation's national calendar. It takes place on the second Sunday of October and counts as a round of the Grand Prix Sicilia, the regional road-racing series for senior and masters categories, as well as the Trapani provincial Grand Prix. Several hundred runners line up each year.

The course is a 2.5 km circuit run four times, fully closed to traffic. Starting on Viale Regina Margherita, alongside the Villa Margherita public gardens, the field heads to Via Platamone and the Lungomare Dante Alighieri, follows the sea as far as Piazza Mercato del Pesce, then turns into the old town via Via Torrearsa and Via Libertà. It continues along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Via Serisso, Via San Francesco d'Assisi and Via Verdi, returns to the Corso, then takes Via Garibaldi, Piazza Municipio and Piazza Vittorio Veneto before reaching the line by the Villa Margherita.

The race starts at 9.30am, with all categories together, after runners gather from 8am near the start area, where bibs are also handed out. There are two start pens: the first is for men who have run 10 km in 40 minutes or less and women under 44:30, the second for everyone else. The 1 hour 20 minute cut-off leaves a comfortable margin, and the seafront route has no real climbs. The race therefore suits both runners chasing a fast time and club runners competing for category placings.

Entry is open to FIDAL members aged 16 and over, Runcard holders with a medical certificate and members of foreign clubs affiliated to World Athletics. Entries are made through clubs or online and close a few days before the race; there are no on-the-day entries. Timing is by chip, to be returned at the finish.

The setting is what gives the race its character. Trapani sits on a narrow, sickle-shaped spit of land, the ancient Drepanon, and the circuit takes runners in a few minutes from the northern seafront into the streets of the historic centre, including Corso Vittorio Emanuele, a pedestrian street lined with Baroque churches and palazzi. The race name pays tribute to the salt pans stretching south of the town between Trapani and Paceco: protected as a nature reserve and dotted with windmills, they have produced the sea salt that made the town's name for centuries, with the medieval hilltop town of Erice watching over them.