UTMB's Australian flagship returns to the Blue Mountains next Thursday for a four-day stack of trail racing that has quietly become one of the most important fixtures on the southern hemisphere calendar. Hoka Ultra-Trail Australia, the Oceania Major in the UTMB World Series, runs from 14 to 17 May out of Katoomba and Scenic World, with the 100-mile UTMB and 100km CCC distances loaded with European, North American and Australasian Series Major qualifying spots.
The terrain is the selling point. The Blue Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site two hours west of Sydney, give the race a distinctive ridgeline profile of sandstone escarpments, rainforested gullies and the relentless Furber Steps climb out of the Jamison Valley. The 100-mile course racks up close to 4,800m of elevation gain over a single loop that finishes through the Three Sisters viewpoint at Echo Point, and the weather forecast for next weekend is the autumn cool the course rewards: low double digits overnight, light winds, no significant rain.
The men's UTMB 100-mile field is one of the deepest in the race's history. Australia's Andy Lee returns as the defending champion, but the international entry list includes USA's Hayden Hawks, France's Benoît Cori and Spain's Marc Pinós. The women's race centres on New Zealand's Ruth Croft, the 2024 winner here, and Australia's Lucy Bartholomew, with US star Katie Schide skipping the trip in favour of an Alps build-up. UTMB World Series Majors qualifying spots will go five-deep on each podium, which is more than in any non-Chamonix Major except Western States.
The shorter distances are equally serious. The 50km is the unofficial Australian championship of the discipline and has been folded into the Blue Mountains Marathon's existing community of weekend racers, with a startlist that mixes Sky Running World Cup regulars and locals. The 22km, run as a fast and technical opener on Saturday morning, sells out within hours each year and is the entry point for thousands of first-time trail finishers; the event is now Australia's biggest by paid entries on a single weekend.
For the wider trail calendar, Ultra-Trail Australia matters because it is the first proper barometer of where the southern hemisphere's UTMB index points are clustering ahead of Chamonix in late August. Croft's last 100-mile race before UTMB itself, Hawks's first big international hit-out of the year and Lee's chance to defend on home soil all fit inside one weekend. The races begin at 5am on Thursday with the 100-mile gun on Furber Steps, and Australian broadcaster Ten will run the elite coverage live to YouTube and the UTMB World Series feed.