Four weeks before the gun goes in Cortina d'Ampezzo, the 2026 La Sportiva Lavaredo Ultra Trail by UTMB has firmed up its 120K elite field with a string of late-confirmed entries that should make this year's headline race the deepest in the event's history. The race runs across the weekend of 24 to 27 June, taking in the same UNESCO World Heritage corner of the Dolomites that will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, with five UTMB-affiliated distances feeding off a shared start-finish village.
Lavaredo's 120K remains the centrepiece. Its 5,800 metres of cumulative climb across the Sextner and Cristallo groups make it one of the most climbing-heavy races in the UTMB World Series, and its overnight start has long made it a tactical race as much as a fitness one. The 80K Cortina Trail, the 50K Cortina Skyrace, the 30K Cortina Trail and the 20K Mini Trail fill out the rest of the timetable, with collective participation now sitting above 7,500 athletes across the four days after late-window organiser slots cleared the wait list earlier this month.
The men's 120K start list now includes a clutch of UTMB World Series contenders looking for points toward the Chamonix final, including a small but quick group from the Pyrenees-based collectives and two athletes who finished inside the top fifteen at Western States 100 last year. The women's race is even sharper at the top: the late confirmation that the 2025 podium finisher returns to defend her place against a deepening Asian-Pacific contingent and a strong European mid-distance crossover field has been the talking point on the start list since the entries were published earlier this week.
UTMB's index-based qualifying system has compressed the rest of the 120K field as well. The points needed to draw a Cortina place this year sat well above the equivalent figure for either Mont-Blanc or Mozart 100, partly because Lavaredo's mid-pack still attracts a strong sub-elite group that uses Cortina as the long race of a Chamonix taper. Race director Cristina Murgia told the local Italian press this month that the 120K start has been deliberately capped to keep early-course bottlenecks below the level seen in 2023, when fog and a slow rolling start created a stop-start opening hour on the climb out of town.
Conditions are typically the unknown variable. June in the Dolomites can deliver anything from short sharp afternoon storms to clear, hot daylight running. Temperatures across the race usually swing between 4 and 19 degrees Celsius depending on altitude and time of day, and the late-spring snow line through the Cristallo group has historically determined whether the high traverses run fast or pick up rope-aided sections. Running Lookout will return with a full preview in the build-up to race week, including the elite-field deep dive and the latest from the UTMB index leaders.