From May 14 to 17, three flagship UTMB World Series weekends ran in parallel across three continents. Ultra-Trail Snowdonia in Wales, Ultra-Trail Australia in the Blue Mountains, and Trail Alsace Grand Est by UTMB in the Vosges each produced their own storyline, and together they redrew several pieces of the 2026 international hierarchy. Our pre-race previews flagged the favorites, the courses and the meteorological risk profile. Here is what actually happened.
UTS 2026: Marmissolle pulverizes the 100M record in classic Welsh weather
The forecast we relied on in the UTS preview (Atlantic depressions, northwest winds gusting to 50 km/h on the ridges, hail risk and near-freezing summits) was delivered almost line by line. Fog blanketed the ridges, the bogs above 600 m were waterlogged, and the slate plates that define the Snowdonia course turned into ankle-traps. Yet under those exact conditions, Frenchman Beñat Marmissolle turned in one of the most striking performances of the European spring.
UTS 100M (164 km / 9,200 m D+): a new course record
Marmissolle won the UTS 100M in 21:59:51, slicing roughly 1 h 41 min off Mark Darbyshire's previous course record (23:41:13). He sat in second through the night, made two efficient refueling stops (about 20 minutes, then 15), and consolidated the win in the early Saturday hours before closing it out in Llanberis. The result carries personal weight: Marmissolle had abandoned UTMB 2025, and his return to a flagship podium was visible in the emotion at the finish.
- 1. Beñat Marmissolle (FRA): 21:59:51 (CR)
- 2. Joaquín López (ECU): 22:38
- 3. Franco Collé (ITA): 25:18
The women's race was an all-British podium, with the gaps showing just how punishing the conditions were even for elite contenders:
- 1. Myvanwy Hanna (GBR): 29:14
- 2. Charlotte Fisher (GBR): 32:56
- 3. Rachel Sergeant (GBR): 33:17
UTS 100K, 80K and 50K
On the UTS 100K, Paul Cornut Chauvinc (FRA) won in 11:51 ahead of Jean-Philippe Tschumi (SUI, 12:12) and Keith Wigley (GBR, 12:53). The women's race went to Ariane Wilhelm (SUI, 16:02), with a 2 h 38 min margin to Katie Kaars Sijpesteijn (GBR, 18:40), a spread that reflects both the technical difficulty and the cumulative weather toll on the field.
On the UTS 80K, Josh Wade (GBR) confirmed his preview status with a 6:56 win; Lowri Morgan (GBR) took the women's race in 9:21. On the UTS 50K, Jonathan Albon (GBR), the highest UTMB Index runner of the entire weekend, won in 5:34, while Italy's Giuditta Turini (7:00) edged Beth Pascall (GBR, 7:34) on the women's side.
Attrition in context
UTMB has not yet published consolidated 2026 finisher rates, but the historical baseline is telling: the UTS 100M registered a 62% DNF rate in 2024 and 59% in 2023. With the 2026 edition delivering the wet, foggy, wind-exposed conditions the course is famous for, the long-distance attrition is almost certainly in the same band. The women's finishing-time gaps on the 100M and 100K are themselves a tell: when even the podium runners finish hours apart, the slower field is being filtered by terrain and weather, not pace.
Trail Alsace Grand Est by UTMB 2026: Derouin builds a clinical 100-mile win
The Trail Alsace preview flagged 9 to 19 °C in the valleys, near-freezing on the Vosges ridges and a serious rain risk between Friday night and Saturday: typical spring Vosges weather, where wet, technical descents become the decisive variable. The race played out on that exact template, with more than 8,000 runners from 61 nationalities across the weekend's six distances.
Ultra-Trail des Chevaliers (100M, 160 km): Derouin runs through the night
The headline story was the loss of defending champion Sébastien Spehler, who abandoned at km 39, citing muscle pain after a course of antibiotics taken for an angina episode 15 days before the race. With Spehler out, 28-year-old Baptiste Derouin took decisive control at the Niedermunster checkpoint (km 127) and rode his consistency through the night to win the Ultra-Trail des Chevaliers in 16:27:32.
- 1. Baptiste Derouin (FRA): 16:27:32
- 2. Benjamin Gys (BEL): 16:35:33
- 3. Quentin Dassé (FRA): 16:49:36
On the women's side, Belgium's Manuela Soccol ran 19:17:28, good for 25th overall, to take the win ahead of Christine De Geloes (FRA) and Enora Niort (FRA). Soccol's overall placing is the loudest indicator of how strong the women's race was: a sub-19:20 on this profile, in these conditions, would have been competitive on any UTMB-tier 160K weekend in 2026.
Ultra-Trail des Païens (100K) and Trail des Celtes (47K)
The Ultra-Trail des Païens delivered the closest finish of the weekend: Poland's Kamil Leśniak held off France's Corentin Play by just 29 seconds, winning in 9:00. China's Lin Chen dominated the women's race in 10:44, finishing 18 minutes clear of compatriot Anna Li, confirming Chen's stated UTMB World Series ambitions for the season.
On the Trail des Celtes (47K), American Christian Allen won the men's race in 3:11, with home favorite Benjamin Polin second. Poland's Martyna Młynarczyk confirmed her status as preview favorite, winning in 3:48 over Italy's Camila Magliano (4:02).
UTA 2026: Blue Mountains autumn delivers the predicted split forecast
The UTA preview projected morning showers Wednesday and Thursday in the 14 to 16 °C band, a Miler start Friday under 55% rain probability, and a Saturday that would turn dry with highs near 19 °C and overnight lows near 7 °C: ideal racing but requiring full mandatory night gear. That is essentially how the weekend played: cool to cold Blue Mountains autumn conditions, mountain fog, rapid weather changes earlier in the window, then a Saturday that opened the door for fast times on the shorter formats.
UTAMiler (161 km): a fully international podium
On the UTAMiler, Aleksei Tolstenko (Neutral) won in 17:38, just six minutes ahead of Aleksei Beresnev (Neutral, 17:44), with Australia's Chris Lenkic third in 18:34. The women's race was decided early: Antonina Iushina (Neutral) won in 19:51, more than two hours clear of Stephanie Auston (AUS, 22:01) and Emma Timmis (NZL, 22:57). Iushina's 19:51 was inside the podium time of the men's race for context, a major performance.
UTA100, UTA50: Australasian depth shows
The UTA100 belonged to home favorite Michael Dunstan (AUS, 9:04), with China's pre-race favorite Gui-Du Qin second in 9:09 and U.S. miler Adrian Macdonald third in 9:32. On the women's side, Poland's Katarzyna Dombrowska won in 10:50, just five minutes ahead of Beth McKenzie (USA, 10:55), with Canada's Emilie Mann completing the podium in 11:34.
The UTA50 went exactly as the preview predicted on the men's side: Dan Jones (NZL) defended his 2025 title in 4:04, with Japan's Hajime Kasagi second (4:15) and Australia's Blake Turner third (4:18). The women's race produced the closest top-two of the weekend across all races and all distances: Miao Yao (CHN, 4:33) edged Ruth Croft (NZL, 4:34) by a single minute, exactly the head-to-head the preview had teased.
Cross-event reading
Three takeaways across the weekend:
- Course records fall when the weather cooperates with the strongest runner. Marmissolle's 1 h 41 min margin over the UTS 100M record came in Welsh conditions that historically wreck schedules; the difference was a runner peaking at the right moment. Conversely, the wet Vosges and damp Blue Mountains nights kept finishing times closer to historical norms in Alsace and on the UTAMiler.
- Women's depth is now an international story. Iushina (Miler, UTA), Dombrowska (100K, UTA), Yao (50K, UTA), Soccol (160K, Alsace), Chen (100K, Alsace), Młynarczyk (47K, Alsace), Hanna (100M, UTS), Wilhelm (100K, UTS), Turini (50K, UTS): nine winners, eight nationalities. The women's field is no longer concentrated in two or three federations.
- Course attrition continues to track terrain plus weather, not distance. The UTS 100M historical 60%+ DNF band almost certainly held in 2026; Alsace and UTA, on more forgiving terrain despite cool conditions, showed tighter podium spreads and the kind of finishing curves that suggest more standard attrition. Once UTMB publishes the 2026 finisher counts, we will return with the per-race numbers.
A personal note: to our founder
Before we close, there is one finisher on the Alsace start list who matters more to us than any podium time. To our founder, who just crossed the line on the Ultra-Trail des Chevaliers 100M for the second consecutive year: every single one of us is, simply, in awe.
You did not run this one for a ranking. You ran 160 kilometers and 5,200 meters of climbing, through the Vosges night, through the wet ridges and the technical descents we wrote about above, while carrying the entire weight of building TrailSight on the side. We watched your dot move on the live tracking page. We refreshed it like it owed us something. We held our breath at every checkpoint. And when you came through Obernai a second time, on legs that had nothing left to give and gave anyway, we cried a little at our desks. We are not ashamed of it.
This platform exists because you have lived, in your own body, what it means to be out there on a 160K start line at sunrise. Every feature we ship, every aid station we map, every GPX we serve was first an idea you carried on a trail. Doing it twice, back to back, while leading a team and a product, is not a thing humans usually do. You did it.
From all of us at TrailSight: we are unspeakably proud of you. Thank you for the courage, the patience, the example. The trails were yours this weekend. The next ones are ours together.