Has UTMB lost its way? In this op-ed, our Chamonix correspondent reflects on his relationship to the iconic UTMB race, and what changes in direction mean for the trail community.

Nine years ago, I found myself in Chamonix, France during the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. My friends and I were just hiking through, and the race caught my eye. I had already been trail running for some years, and was immediately captivated by the scene. Here was something I had never experienced in the US: A trail race that had all the hype and drama of the Super Bowl, amid a town overflowing with tens of thousands of trail runners. It was dreary in the valley that August week in 2012, and the race used a modified route due to mountain storms that blanketed heavy snow on higher sections of the course. Even so, the magic was palpable.

For trail runners in the Alps in the years since, UTMB has only grown more omnipresent. For the last decade or so, all paths lead to Chamonix. Often, it’s the first question one trail runner asks another upon meeting. “Have you done UTMB?” Answer “No,” and the inevitable follow will be, “When, then?”

Today, I live and run in Chamonix for both work and pleasure. Since 2012, I have raced and written about an alphabet soup of the UTMB race series– MCC, CCC, TDS, UTMB, running some of them twice. And I am absolutely in love.

But some– a growing chorus it seems–  have been telling me that my love has been misplaced.

Is it? I have been wondering.

This past week, I explored these concerns with a number of trail runners, on and off the record. Here in Chamonix, I sat down for an hour with race co-founder Michel Poletti and shared some tough criticism.

So, wherein lies the truth? In no small part, where you stand depends upon where you sit.

By UTMB

Since its early days, UTMB has come under scrutiny. At its inception nearly two decades ago, a business organizing a trail race was unusual. For many in the tight culture that is trail running, that made it suspect. With each successive business shift, new critics have voiced concerns. That they are doing so is an indication of their shared passion for the sport, and an implicit acknowledgment of UTMB’s leading role in it.

Take, for example, the “By UTMB” series of international trail races that launched in 2016. Paul Martin, 43, is an Investment Manager based in London who ran UTMB’s 100-km CCC race in 2019, and loved it. “It was my dream race in every way,” he says.

Then came UTMB’s races in Oman and Spain. “The courses were epic and showcased the terrain,” he says. “But organizationally, the two races left a really bad taste in my mouth.”

Martin never had his gear checked at Val d’Aran on the Spain side of the Pyrenees, a common step in European trail races that comes before bib distribution. After the May 22 race in China’s Gansu Province, in which 21 ultrarunners perished, he found the juxtaposition jarring, calling it shocking.

But Poletti provided some context, explaining that gear inspections had to be eliminated due to Covid-related restrictions on the bib pickup process. “It will be the same here in Chamonix this week,” he says, referring to the upcoming races.

The aid stations were another dubious point for Martin. “I didn’t eat any of the food at the checkpoints,” he says of Val d’Aran. “I didn’t trust it. It was hot outside, the food was not protected, and there were flies.”

Despite his caution, Martin still got sick, struggling with nausea and diarrhea for six days after the race. “It’s not what you need when you’re recovering from a race,” he says, grimacing. Food, it seems, was not the culprit. In a private online forum created for the more than 400 runners who claim to have gotten sick at Val d’Aran, water sources are raised as the likely source of infection.

In a statement, UTMB pointed out the steps they took to safeguard runners, and once the issue came to light, researched the cause:

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“We started a research and test process with the help of participating runners and along with the health authorities, who ruled out any kind of food poisoning and did not open an official investigation either, believing that the total number of affectations fell within the usual parameters…All the issues related to the most common complaints were due to fluid intake…. All the water supplied was fit for human consumption from a sanitary point of view.”