When the 2026 UTMB sets off from the centre of Chamonix at 5:45pm on Friday evening, the 177-kilometre loop of Mont Blanc will be missing an extraordinary share of its expected protagonists. Kilian Jornet has opted for knee surgery, Jim Walmsley and defending men's champion Tom Evans withdrew earlier in race week, and the women's race has lost defending champion Ruth Croft along with Katie Schide, while 2024 men's winner Vincent Bouillard is also out. What remains is the most open edition of the sport's biggest race in years.
In the men's race, the strongest form lines now run through America. Ben Dhiman, last year's runner-up, arrives as the most direct claimant to the vacant title, while Caleb Olson, the 2025 Western States champion, and fellow Americans Chris Myers and Rod Farvard bring genuine 100-mile pedigree to the Alps. Europe's response is led by Frenchman Baptiste Chassagne, Germany's Hannes Namberger, fourth here in 2024 and a Lavaredo Ultra Trail winner this summer, and Britain's Jonathan Albon, whose technical skills suit the course's rougher passages. None of them has won UTMB before, which guarantees the race a first-time men's champion from a crowded field of plausible contenders.
The women's race has an equally compelling shape. Courtney Dauwalter, a three-time winner, returns after her difficult 2025 edition in which she led at halfway before fading to 10th. Her season suggests the old force is intact: victory at the Chianti 120k, second at the Cocodona 250, and a fourth Hardrock 100 title in July. Against her stand Riley Brady, runner-up at Western States and the highest-indexed woman in the field, Canada's Marianne Hogan, second here in 2022, Cocodona course-record holder Rachel Entrekin, and France's Blandine L'Hirondel, the 2022 CCC champion and 2025 Diagonale des Fous winner, who was third at UTMB in 2023.
History offers one caution against overconfident predictions. No woman had successfully defended the title since Rory Bosio in 2013 and 2014, and the withdrawals mean nobody will this year either. The racing so far this week has reinforced how demanding the mountains are: France swept the podiums at a rain-hit TDS on Tuesday, several favourites failed to finish, and conditions on the high cols have been cold and wet at night. The forecast for the weekend will shape tactics on a course that climbs roughly 10,000 metres over its full circuit of the massif.
The week's remaining programme frames the main event. OCC crowned its champions on Thursday, CCC's 101-kilometre field leaves Courmayeur on Friday morning, and the UTMB leaders are expected back on the Place du Triangle de l'Amitie around 20 hours after Friday's start, with the final finishers arriving before Sunday afternoon's cutoff. However the podium resolves, the 2026 edition will produce new names at the front of the sport, and a reshaped hierarchy heading into the autumn.