Several big favorites, including defending champion Jim Walmsley, threw in the towel overnight on the 21st.my edition of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), which will leave Chamonix on Friday evening and return to the city scheduled for the arrival of the fastest, on Saturday 31 August, from 2 p.m.
The American, who was aiming for a double victory in his sixth participation in the race, retired after about nine hours and 83 kilometres of racing due to a knee injury. Other serious candidates for the podium among the men did the same, notably the Frenchman Mathieu Blanchard, also injured, Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz, Germain Grangier and the British Tom Evans. Among the women, Anne-Lise Rousset also gave up, victim of a cold at the beginning of the evening.
After more than fifteen hours of racing, it is a relative unknown, 31-year-old Frenchman Vincent Bouillard, who is alone in the lead. There are fewer surprises among the women, where the American favourite Katie Schide currently leads by around thirty minutes over her closest pursuers, Canadian Marianne Hogan and New Zealander Ruth Croft.
Some 2,300 competitors took part in the queen of trail races in Chamonix on Friday. The 176.4-kilometre long route with almost 10,000 metres of gradient encircles the Mont-Blanc with several passes in the high mountains at an altitude of over 2,500 metres. The fastest are expected to start at 2 p.m. and return to the starting point in Chamonix.
