2023-09-01 11:48:26
The Spaniard Pau Capell, during the ascent of the Roman Road (Haute-Savoie), during the 19ᵉ edition of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, August 27, 2022. JEFF PACHOUD / AFP
It’s to the ultra-trail what the World Cup final is to football. The event not to be missed, the one dreamed of by enthusiasts, the locomotive of a discipline in constant progression since its creation, whose success continues to grow, even to swell, at the risk of losing what has made its prestige.
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Because like the Mondial, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) is today a commercial label in its own right, a source of considerable income, a flourishing brand exported all over the world and a promotional medium highly coveted. But in which some no longer recognize the values of simplicity, generosity, sharing and respect for nature that gave birth to it just twenty years ago.
From Monday August 28 to Sunday September 3, 10,000 runners of 118 nationalities and 100,000 spectators are expected in the 18 municipalities of France, Switzerland and Italy crossed by the eight events from 15 to 300 kilometers that the event now has. The 2,300 registered in the flagship and historic race, with its 171 kilometers for 10,000 meters of elevation gain – i.e. four end-to-end marathons embellished with the equivalent of two ascents of Everest starting from base camp –, s will start on Friday 1 September at 6 p.m. from Chamonix (Haute-Savoie). The first are expected twenty hours later at the same place and the last, Sunday at 4:30 p.m., after two days and two nights of effort.
On August 30, 2003 in the early morning, on the church square in Chamonix, 663 « ultrafondus » twenty nationalities were at the start. Only sixty-seven made it to the finish, under the gaze of an audience that was both sparse and dumbfounded. Many, like the columnist of the Dauphiné liberatedhave then seen in this “peak rolling mill” only one “addition of suffering”but the survivors can claim to have contributed to the birth of a myth.
The sirens of profit
In just three editions, the number of runners has tripled and that of “finishers” has multiplied by ten. Ten years later, that of the hexagonal trails inspired by this example will have made the same somersault, going from 150 to 1,500. For its twenty years, “The Race to a Thousand Winners”, the last of which is celebrated as triumphantly as the first, arouses more covetousness than ever. However, conditions have changed.
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In 2007, the 2,377 bibs available were snapped up in eight minutes and nearly 5,000 requests were rejected. “We went from dream makers to dream breakers”deplores the boss of UTMB France, Isabelle Viseux-Poletti, the daughter of the founder of the event, Catherine Poletti. A drawing of lots replaced the first-come, first-served rule the following year, new events came to expand the offer over the years, then a points-based qualification system, to be gleaned from other races, had to be added to the selection process. Since 2022, the sesame has been reserved for those who have performed well in other events labeled UTMB – there are now 38 of them, spread over all the continents. An exclusivity that sometimes makes people cringe. Have the promoters of the founding values of ultra-trail yielded to the sirens of profit?
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