Welcome to UTMB week! It’s the biggest international trail running event of the year, featuring eight races culminating in the venerable Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB).
What started as the singular 107-mile UTMB event in 2003 has grown into a weeklong festival of races, shakeout runs, and brand activations that include shoe drops, film premieres, athlete speaker panels, coffee meetups, and a massive race expo with more than 50 running vendors selling shoes, apparel, accessories, and nutritional supplements. In all, more than 12,500 runners will participate in the races, but an estimated 50,000 visitors are in town to watch, support, and crew runners.
This vibe is lively and exciting, but the scene is more congested than ever before. As of Monday, the city’s pedestrian village and its shops and restaurants have been packed with a mix of runners, supporters, and vacationing runners in town to check it all out, as well as hikers, general tourists, and the locals daring enough to stick around in the busiest week of the summer. There are more media outlets here to cover the events, more social media influencers (running and non-running influencers alike), and more brands trying to stake a claim than ever before. It’s become somewhat of a circus, but once the races of the UTMB World Series Finals get underway (OCC 50K, CCC 100K, and UTMB), everyone will be laser focused on the racing.
Things got underway Monday in Chamonix with the massive PTL 300K+ mountaineering race for teams of two or three runners, the low-key MCC 40K race for local runners and volunteers, and the extremely technical TDS 148K race with its daunting nighttime start just before midnight. On Tuesday afternoon in Courmayeur, runners will tackle the ETC 15K race, a grueling 9.4-mile race with 4,000-feet of vertical gain, while young runners will compete in three distances of the YCC youth races.
The biggest focus remains on the 108-mile (172K) UTMB race that begins on Friday evening (or 11:45 a.m. ET in the U.S.) and encircles the Mont Blanc Massif through parts of Italy and Switzerland before returning back to Chamonix beginning on Saturday afternoon. But since 2023, it’s been part of a three-pronged championship of the UTMB World Series that also includes the OCC 50K on Thursday morning (2:15 a.m. ET start) and the CCC 100K on Friday morning (3 a.m. ET start). Each of the races can be followed via live tracking, while the championship races (OCC, CCC, UTMB) can be watched via livestream on the UTMB website or via YouTube.
Shoe brands have used Chamonix as a launching pad for new trail running shoes for years, and that’s continuing this year. Nike started the shoe lust vibe on Saturday when it unveiled its new Nike ACG Ultrafly shoe at the Sentier pop-up shop in Chamonix and then had a group of runners run up Chamonix’s challenging VK course wearing the neon-orange shoes. The shoes feature a thick ZoomX midsole (37mm/28.5mm), a curvy carbon-fiber Flyplate, and a breathable engineered mesh upper. It’s not for sale yet (probably early February), and neither is the new Radical Air Innovation long-sleeve top that’s been creating a buzz since Caleb Olson wore it en route to winning this year’s Western States 100.
The other most anticipated shoe drop in Chamonix this week is the adidas TERREX Ultra Agravic Speed 2, which doesn’t have the sharp rocker profile that the first edition had. (That shoe will become available at stores in November.)
While conditions for the races in the early part of the week have been stunning with mostly sunny blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70s during the day and in the mid-50s overnight, rain is on the way. Rain is supposed to begin early Wednesday and bring heavy precipitation and cooler temperatures through Friday. Rain is in the forecast for Saturday morning, but it could be back to sunny and clear as the leaders of the UTMB return to Chamonix on Saturday afternoon.
Although they won’t face off in the same races as many fans had hoped, American runners Courtney Dauwalter and Katie Schide are both the talk of the town so far. They’ve combined to win the past five editions of the UTMB women’s race, with Dauwalter taking three (2019, 2021, 2023) and Schide winning two (2022, 2024), including her course-record win (22:09:31) last year in Dauwalter’s absence. (In all, six U.S. women have won the UTMB 10 times, more than any other country.)
The 40-year-old Daulwalter will be aiming for her fourth win when the race gets underway on Friday, but Schide, who is in Chamonix this week, is opting not to race at all this week and instead to focus on the World Mountain and Trail Running World Championships in Spain. Schide, 33, is coming off a course-record victory at the Hardrock 100 on July 12 in Silverton, Colorado, while Dauwalter won the Laverado 120K race in Italy in late June. She also won the Nice 100K in France back in March to earn her ticket to Chamonix.
Just nine weeks after winning the Western States 100, Abby Hall is eager to toe the starting line at UTMB. While only a few runners have been able to land on the podium in both races in the same summer, Nikki Kimball (2007), Kilian Jornet (2011), Courtney Dauwalter (2023), and Katie Schide (2024) have each won both races in the same summer.
The 35-year-old from Flagstaff, Arizona, admits she didn’t have a huge training block for UTMB this year, but instead she focused on rest and recovery and then got about two or three big weeks of training under her belt.
“I got out for a few first long runs at the end of July, and kind of used that as the litmus test of if it was going to sound good to me to do another big long run at the end of August,” Hall said. “And honestly, it just feels right. Also, I feel like at a place in my career where I’m realizing how rare it is for so many pieces to line up and have things clicking, and I want to keep riding this momentum right now.”
Hall finished among the top 10 in the CCC 100K three times—including a second-place finish in 2021. She planned to move up to the longer UTMB in 2023, but badly injured her left leg and knee in a fall in May of that year. After extensive rehab, she came back to run UTMB in 2024, but didn’t have the result she wanted (31st, 31:17) and is out for redemption.
“I feel like one of my intentions after the injury has been to just not be so scared of toeing a line or feeling like it has to be like the perfect build, you know?” she said. “So many people have given so much throughout the calendar year to make it here. It is such a cool and rare opportunity, and it just reminds me how special it is to be here.”
American Jim Walmsley, who became the first U.S. male runner to win UTMB in 2023, was originally planning to run both the Western States 100 and UTMB this year, but a spring knee injury that took him out of Western States forced him to rethink jumping back into the fire of UTMB. Instead, he’ll be racing the OCC 50K, but he’s also planning to run the 80K race in next month’s World Mountain and Trail Running World Championships in Spain.
Last year’s winner Vincent Bouillard, the full-time materials science engineer for HOKA, is also skipping the UTMB week of races entirely to focus on next month’s world championships. Meanwhile, Spanish runner Kilian Jornet, who won UTMB for a record fourth time in 2022, isn’t racing at all in Chamonix, instead he’s preparing for a project he’ll begin September 2 in which he’ll try to summit all of the 14,000-foot peaks in the American west and connect them by bicycle.
That might sound ludicrous, but it’s not when Ludovic Pommeret is in the field. The 50-year-old Frenchman is still at the top of his game, having just won his second straight Hardrock 100 on July 12 in Colorado and last year placing a very solid fifth in UTMB. Pommeret figures to be one of the top contenders in the field again this year, along with fellow Frenchman Francois D’Haene, American Hayden Hawks, New Zealand’s Daniel Jones, China’s Ji Duo and British runners Tom Evans and Jonathan Albon. While all of those runners have a lot of race wins under their belt, only Pommeret has won UTMB (2016). Pommeret has the most experience in the field on the 107-mile race with 33,000 feet of vert, and might also have the most patience.
D’Haene, 39, is a four-time UTMB winner, who won the low-key Transylvania 100K in Romania earlier this year. Hawks, 34, is a two-time CCC 100K champion (2017, 2024) and a two-time podium finisher at Western States. Evans, 33, has struggled with injuries in recent years but owns a Western States 100 win (2023) and a CCC 100K title (2018). Albon, 36, captured the CCC crown in 2023 and the OCC in 2021, in addition to 14 obstacle course racing world championships. Jones, 34, a former 2:16 marathoner, has finished in the top five at each of the last three Western States 100 races. Duo, 33, a prolific winner in China, placed 13th at UTMB in 2023.
Although rain will likely play a factor, Thursday’s OCC races are going to be speedy. It’s really become a savage event in which the top contenders must go all-out from the start and stay at the red line and risk blowing up if they want to compete for a podium finish. The course is vicious and, with 11,480 feet of vert over 35.4 miles, it will chew many runners apart, even on a dry day.
In the women’s race, defending champion Miao Yao (China) holds the OCC course record (5:54:03), and she’ll be tough to beat, but this race takes no prisoners and Judith Wyder (Switzerland), Sara Alonso (Spain), and Joyline Chepngeno (Kenya) have all been running great this summer, and any one of them can win it. Basically those four women are probably fighting for three podium spots, unless someone has a banger day and surprises the field. (And yes, that’s also pretty likely, especially considering Rosa Lara Feliu (Spain), Maude Mathys (Switzerland), Kim Schreiber (Germany), and Sophia Laukli (U.S.)
On the men’s side, Jim Walmsley is certainly a contender, if not the favorite, but the field is filled with fast runners who are either stepping up in distance or talented endurance fiends who are dropping down. Normally a longer-distance specialist, Petter Engdahl (Sweden) might be a contender after winning the CCC in 2022, while Adam Peterman (U.S.) is also dropping down in distance and should vie for a top-10 finish. Roberto Delorenzi (Switzerland) is a bit of an enigma after winning Switzerland’s Eiger Ultra Trail 50K in July, then finishing a distant 53rd in the Sierre-Zinal a month later. He’s a top talent, but he’s also twice DNF’d the OCC, so there’s no telling what he’ll do. Don’t sleep on Antonio Martinez Perez (Spain), Davide Magnini (Italy), Hannes Namberger (Germany), Miguel Benitez (Spain), or Cristian Minoggio (Italy).
Friday’s CCC races could be the most competitive of the entire week. The 62.7-mile race sends runners from Courmayeur, Italy, through Switzerland, and then on to the finish line in Chamonix, Along the way, runners will tackle 19,849 feet of vertical gain and loss in a monster death march to the finish.
The women’s CCC field might be the strongest and deepest of any race. South Africa’s Toni McCann is the top contender, having won the Lavaredo 50K in Italy in late June and having both an OCC (2023) and CCC (2024) title to her credit. China’s Fuzhao Xiang finished second at Western States in June for the second straight year, but Spain’s Anna Tarasova has been on a hot streak this summer and Nepal’s Sunmaya Budha returns after finishing second in the CCC in 2022. Poland’s Martyna Mlynarczyk made waves briefly this year when she went out hard and led the Western States 100 briefly, but she’s more adept at the 100K distance. (She was second in the CCC in 2024.)
Norway’s Sylvia Nordskar has a big history of winning shorter, sub-ultra races, while countrywoman Yngvild Kaspersen (second at the Lavaredo 80K in June) is more of a long-distance specialist who has really improved in recent years. Meanwhile, Lotti Brinks, who finished ninth last year, is probably the best American runner in the field, especially considering Dani Moreno has been hurt this summer and hasn’t gotten a solid training block in. Brinks spent the week mountain biking in Chamonix and is eager to race fast.
On the men’s side, Italy’s Francesco Puppi is back after winning in 2023 and placing second last year. The next fastest runner is American Eli Hemming, who beat Puppi at OCC last year despite struggling over the final 10K. Both Puppi and Hemming have been known as sub-ultra specialists and 50K champs, so moving up to the 100K will test their limits. Other top contenders include Italy’s Andreas Reiterer, who won a silver medal in the 80K race at the 2023 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, Drew Holmen (U.S.), who is coming off a win at the Laverado 80K in Italy in late June, along with Andreu Simon Aymerich (Spain), Guangfu Meng (China), Eric LiPuma (U.S.), and David Sinclair (U.S.).
