HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc runs from 24 to 30 August, with eight races starting in turn from Chamonix, Courmayeur, Martigny-Combe and Orsieres. The flagship UTMB itself covers 174km and 9,900m of climbing across France, Italy and Switzerland, setting off from Chamonix at 17:45 on Friday 28 August. Alongside it sit the two other World Series Finals, the OCC over 50km and the CCC over 100km, plus the PTL, MCC, ETC, TDS and YCC.
The women's race lost its most obvious storyline before it began. Katie Schide, who holds the course record, is out with a foot injury, which leaves Ruth Croft as the favourite on form and on evidence. The New Zealander won last year in 22:56 ahead of Camille Bruyas and Katharina Hartmuth, is the only woman to have won the OCC, CCC and UTMB, and opened 2026 by taking Tarawera for a fourth time.
Croft will not have it to herself. Riley Brady of the United States, China's Fuzhao Xiang, Nepal's Sunmaya Budha and France's Blandine L'Hirondel, a former CCC winner who knows the terrain well, are all capable of reshaping the podium over a distance where a single bad night undoes months of preparation. Courtney Dauwalter's presence in Chamonix adds another layer to a week that UTMB has described as its strongest yet.
In the men's race, Vincent Bouillard arrives as the 2024 champion and with the best recent result of anyone in the field, having won the 2026 Western States Endurance Run in a course record. Ben Dhiman, second last year and a winner at Lavaredo and the Grand Raid Ventoux this season, is the most credible new contender, while Jim Walmsley, the 2023 winner, remains central to most predictions. Jon Albon, Mathieu Blanchard, Theo Detienne, Baptiste Chassagne and Pau Capell fill out a field with unusual strength in depth, and Kilian Jornet returns chasing a fifth title.
What tends to decide UTMB is rarely the entry list. Late-August conditions in the Mont-Blanc massif can swing from heat in the valleys to freezing on the high cols within the same night, and the race has repeatedly punished runners who treated the first 50km as a competition. With a field this deep, the more likely outcome is that the winner is somebody who was outside the top ten at Courmayeur.