Jim Walmsley, Mathieu Blanchard will return to UTMB in 2024
Canada's Christian Meier and Marianne Hogan are also on the start list
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UTMB
Update March 18, 2024: Jim Walmsley is no longer on the start list for UTMB.
2023 UTMB champion Jim Walmsley and 2022 second-place finisher Mathieu Blanchard have confirmed they will appear at this year’s Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) final, which takes place in Chamonix, France on Aug. 30, according to a report by iRunFar. A number of other ultratrail elites have also been announced, including the U.K.’s Tom Evans, who finished third in 2022 and who won Western States 100 in 2023, and Canada’s Christian Meier, the former pro cyclist who won the 145-km TDS race last year.
On the women’s side, Canada’s Marianne Hogan (who finished second in 2022) is confirmed, as are 2022 champion Katie Schide of the U.S., France’s Claire Bannwarth and New Zealand’s Ruth Croft (who won Western States in 2022). (Three-time UTMB champion and course record holder Courtney Dauwalter does not appear on the list.)
🌍 118 nationalities
At the same time, the international aura remains undeniable. Jim Walmsley and Courtney Dauwalter, our two recent winners, have inspired many of their compatriots. There has been a 56% increase in pre-registrations from American runners compared to 2023 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/iM4ASJI9LV
— Dacia UTMB® Mont-Blanc (@UTMBMontBlanc) February 1, 2024
Four-time champion Kilian Jornet and 2023 second-place finisher Zach Miller will also not be returning. After the October, 2023 announcement by UTMB and its minority partner, the Ironman Group, of a new race in Whistler, B.C. in 2024, and the Dec. 1 announcement that UTMB livestream announcer Corrine Malcolm had been fired, the two publicly questioned the organization’s decisions and its treatment of athletes. There was talk of a boycott, though Jornet and Miller dispute this; in the wake of all of this, regular discussions between UTMB and the Pro Trail Runners Association (PTRA), of which Jornet is a founding member, became more frequent, with a view to smoothing relations between athletes and the race.
Here are the top women's runners for the #UTMB, #OCC, and #TDS at the 2024 UTMB Mont-Blanc festival of events, this summer in Chamonix, France.
(The #CCC entrants list isn't online yet.)https://t.co/grZUbY1wZw
— iRunFar (@iRunFar) March 4, 2024
Walmsley moved to France for two years to hone his mountain-running skills before finally winning UTMB on his fifth try in 2023 (he Walmsley first ran UTMB in 2017, finishing fifth; he DNF’d in 2018 and again in 2021, then finished fourth in 2022). Blanchard, who has returned to France after living in Montreal for a few years (and taking out Canadian citizenship), finished fourth last year after following Jornet onto the podium in 2022. Hogan has been dealing with injuries for much of the last year and a half since her podium finish in 2022.
Four-time UTMB champion François d’Haene, in an Instagram post on Jan. 25, indicated he would be returning to UTMB, but not until 2025. He recently announced he will compete at Tor des Géants 330K, which starts Sept. 8.
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