Jiaju Zhao of China won the 2026 Tor des Géants in a course record of 65 hours, 55 minutes and 22 seconds, taking 13 minutes off the mark Victor Richard set in 2025. The win made Zhao the first Chinese runner to claim the 330km race, which starts and finishes in Courmayeur in Italy's Aosta Valley.
The route covers roughly 336 kilometres with around 24,000 metres of climbing, and runners have up to 150 hours to finish. Switzerland's Jonathan Schindler was second in 66:55:06, just under an hour behind the winner.
Germany's Katharina Hartmuth produced the other headline performance. She finished third overall in 67:10:09, 75 minutes behind Zhao, and in doing so became both the first woman to break 70 hours and the first woman to reach the overall podium. Her previous women's record, set in 2024, was 79:10:40, so she improved it by more than 12 hours. She is reported to have slept for only around 15 minutes.
The toll of such a pace was evident at the finish. Zhao described the experience as “worse than death” and said it felt “like a living hell”. He also reported nosebleeds, severe foot pain and fatigue so intense that he slapped his own face to stay awake.
Hartmuth's season has been a notable one, with her name also on the winners' list at the Madeira Island Ultra-Trail 110k. Taken together, the Tor des Géants results suggest the long-standing gap between the leading women and men in multi-day mountain racing is narrowing faster than many had expected.