Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc

Big rush on 4 sections

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the major trail running event in France. Especially in the last 10 years, the UTMB has become the non-plus-ultra event for more and more runners. In addition to the main route along the long-distance trail Tour de Mont Blanc, the organizers have also included other shorter, but by no means less attractive, sections in the program in the interest of trail running. The CCC is the "little sister" of the UTMB and offers a course length of 101km. The TDS over 145km is technically particularly demanding and leads from Courmayeur in Italy to Chamonix. The shortest and meanwhile most popular ultra trail start within the UTMB is offered by the OCC with a length of 56km. There are always new race formats added to the "Event Week UTMB" every year. So in 2022 there is also an offer for trail beginners (ETC over 15km) and/or young runners (YCC and Mini) who also want to be part of the big event.

Due to the growing enthusiasm for all UTMB races, a normal registration has not been possible for a long time and until today a selection process had to be created, governed by a system of qualification points and a lottery. In total, at the beginning of this year, about 22,000 runners were waiting for the draw of the only 10,000 available starting places (distributed over all distances). Already this announcement of the results of the UTMB lottery is undoubtedly one of the first highlights and marks for all participants the beginning of their personal UTMB adventure.

Qualification and lottery

Ivan Favretto explained to us how to be part of the UTMB: "To qualify in 2022, you had to have finished some qualifying races within the last four years (because of Corona, the period was extended from two to four years) - including at least two races over 100km. More and more trail running events are becoming specially advertised qualifying races for the UTMB and are thus advertising for growing numbers of participants. This is the case, for example, with the Mozart 100 by UTMB in Salzburg. Once you've cleared that hurdle, you get into a lottery pot and hope among thousands that you're one of the lucky ones to get a commitment for your starting spot six months in advance."

Professional and elite runners can escape this lottery - which resembles a rather strenuous game of chance - by running for so-called ITRA points, as Ivan, Jimmy and Alexander have done in previous years, and qualifying directly for the UTMB based on their strong performances in the professional field. The ITRA points system (International Trail Running Association) is an objective evaluation in points, which shows the performance at the respective race. Criteria such as finish time, placement and strength of competition are taken into account. The average of these points results in a personal ITRA score. From 800 ITRA points, elite runners can register directly and start at the front of the professional starting block.