2023 Barkley Marathons sees an incredible three finishers

With only an hour and 37 minutes to spare before the final cutoff at 9:54 p.m. Thursday evening, Aurélien Sanchez arrived back in camp at Frozen Head, becoming the first finisher of the Barkley Marathons since 2017, in his debut. Nineteen minutes later, John Kelly also returned, scoring his second, much-anticipated finish and becoming only the third runner with more than one finish to his name. And with less than seven minutes remaining on the clock, Karel Sabbe, the Belgian dentist, arrived in camp to bring the total number of finishers to an incredible three (and a sigh of relief to his crew). 

A quick water refill at the tower and Aurélien disappeared in the wood … running !!! 50h10 on the race clock. @keithdunn, he doesn’t look great, he looks fantastic!!! #BM100 #AllezAllez pic.twitter.com/kXtKQxZ5Ik

— Guillaume Calmettes (@gcalmettes) March 16, 2023

This is only the fourth time in the history of the five-loop version of the course (which started in 1995) that there has been more than one finisher, and the first time there have been three finishers since 2012. Sanchez and Sabbe bring the total number of Barkley finishers to 17.

Four men started loop five earlier Thursday; Damian Hall dropped out and returned to camp sometime thereafter, having become lost on the course and without gathering any book pages. 

Fans’ hopes to finally see a woman finish the race were dashed when the clock ran out on Jasmin Paris’s fourth loop; she returned to camp well after the 48-hour cutoff on Thursday. 

Live action on the #BM100 course, John Kelly arrives at the tower on loop 5 !!! Way to go @RndmForestRunnr, go get that 2nd finish !!! pic.twitter.com/HQZ4nUhoUa

— Guillaume Calmettes (@gcalmettes) March 16, 2023

Sanchez apparently was unable to find one of his books, since, according to a tweet by Keith Dunn, a day hiker had removed it, thinking the race was over; the book was waiting for him upon his return to camp.

As the first finisher of loop four, Kelly was allowed to choose which direction he wanted to run loop five; he chose clockwise, which is generally preferred because it is the first direction runners travelled on Tuesday morning when the race began. (If there is more than one runner on loop five, they must run in different directions. Sanchez ran counterclockwise, and Sabbe is running clockwise, but some distance behind Kelly.)

And now Karel is at the tower!! 55h39 race time pic.twitter.com/D76oyEavWA

— Guillaume Calmettes (@gcalmettes) March 16, 2023

Finishers’ splits

                             Loop 1         Loop 2           Loop 3          Loop 4          Loop 5

Sanchez              08:48          21:13:06       32:55:48     45:57:09       58:23:12

Kelly                   08:17:57      20:07:02      32:04:01     45:50:23       58:42:23 

Sabbe                 08:22:15      20:48:21       32:46:31     46:36:57      59:53:33

From what we have gathered, Sanchez, 32, lives and trains in Toulouse, France; he has raced a few U.S. ultras, as well as last year’s Diagonale des Fous 100-miler on Reunion Island. On his Instagram page, he has a story about visiting Frozen Head for the first time in May 2018 and finding a walnut shell on a pillar by the yellow gate, which he has carried with him in every race since then, as a kind of good luck charm. (It appears to have been effective.)

Kelly famously finished the Barkley in 2017, working through to loop four with Gary Robbins, now of Chilliwack, B.C.  They were the only runners to attempt a fifth loop, and ran in opposite directions, as per Barkley rules; Robbins took a wrong turn and failed to finish.

For Sabbe, this finish is redemption for the 32-year-old ultra-trail runner, who had to drop out last year on his fourth loop after he was brought back to camp by the police for wandering around in the middle of the night.