Mail Sport Extreme at UTMB: How ultra running's friendly festival of epic endurance reached its peak

Twenty-one years ago, Catherine and Michel Poletti had a dream. That dream became a reality and now their daughter Isabelle is ready to take over the reins.

For the first three years, there was just one race — the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc itself. As the event grew, a second race was added in 2006 — the CCC, a 101km race starting in Courmayeur and finishing in Chamonix.

A third event came to fruition in 2009, before a fourth was introduced in 2011. Most recently, seven events were run over the course of a week.

From just 700 runners in the 2003 iteration, there were over 10,000 official participants this year, run in the final week of August. Though the event has grown to a full festival of running — with fan villages and experiences throughout the week — Isabelle, the current director of UTMB Mont Blanc and French events, concedes that there is now a limit on the number of runners for the future.

‘We have no plans to make the event any bigger,’ she admits. ‘We don’t want to get any more runners than we’ve had this year. That’s due to the town (Chamonix) being a small place, the valley is a small place, so the town and area can’t cope with that number of people.

‘We sadly can’t manage to get more runners, more visitors, more media at the one time.’

Though over 10,000 runners took part this year across the seven races, ranging from 15km to 300km in distance, official figures show that just 8,373 completed their respective races, including 63 per cent of runners finishing the flagship event itself.

Ahead of the race, last year’s winner Jim Walmsley was tipped for glory again, as was Great Britain’s Thomas Evans. Unfortunately, both runners withdrew from the UTMB around 83km and 109km in, respectively.

That opened the door for a new champion, with France’s Vincent Bouillard crossing the finishing line first in a time of 19 hours 54 minutes and 23 seconds. American Katie Schide was the fastest female, coming home in a time of 22:09:31, and the 13th finisher overall.

In the case of Schide, it was her second win in the race, improving on her winning time of 23:15:12 in 2022.

With participants coming to the end of their race after a gruelling 20+ hours, fans lined the streets of Chamonix and beyond, giving the runners that final push towards the end. As darkness flowed over the valley and people began to pack up for the night, bystanders in pubs and restaurants were still cheering the later finishers home at 10pm.

It is this community, this family feel that Isabelle Poletti feels is so special when it comes to the UTMB Mont Blanc.

‘All of my family are involved in organising the event, same with a lot of friends,’ she says. ‘There are about 2,500 volunteers that help as well and we can’t manage to have that many people without the important friendship throughout the region.

‘I began when I was a young adult, my brother got involved as a teenager, so we knew about the event 21 years ago and we would love to keep it in the family.’

Speaking to some of the volunteers throughout the week, Mail Sport noted how almost all of them felt the special bond between the event organisers and the runners themselves.

When it was put to Isabelle about how important it is that the event remains family-run and not lost to the corporate world, she described how crucial the festival is and how it is aimed at the running community rather than being a money-making machine.

It would have been easy to take an event such as this one to Scandanavia, the Pyrenees, or even to the trails in Great Britain. However, with the Poletti family growing up in the region, knowing the history of the place, the trails themselves — and Mont Blanc being globally recognisable — it just felt right to have the UTMB world finals back in the Chamonix Valley.

‘This course is good territory for a race, because of the three countries it passes through, 18 communes, and it’s a good time of year for the race to be run,’ explains Isabelle.

‘Twenty-one years ago, trail running was just becoming a thing, especially at ultra distances, so we started it just on good vibes. Because of the emotion and good vibes we put into it, people would come here and discover the beautiful landscapes, the beautiful people and all the emotions made them so happy that they wanted to come back.

‘We picked Mont Blanc because the founders (my mother and father) were from here. My father was actually born in this area, so he knows the region, he knows the mountains.

‘Before 1999, we had a relay event around Mont Blanc on the official trails but that stopped due to an accident in one of the tunnels which sadly resulted in a death, so the tunnels were closed for three years.

‘When the tunnel reopened three years later, we said that it was important to restart races as it was vital to celebrate the friendship between the countries and the regions.

‘So at that time, my mother and father said they wanted to do something, that it was time to have runners back on those trails.’