21,700 runners registered for 7,600 places across all 6 races of the UTMB event. This is up from the 17,219 hopefuls that entered last year. This continues the upwards trend, with interest in the race growing every year since its inception in 2003.
Chamonix UTMB 2018, the most international yet
Record number of entrants for THE Chamonix trail race
This year the race passed an important milestone, there will be participants from 101 countries. The first time this number has made it to triple digits, meaning the race is more international than ever and that over half the of the world’s 195 countries will be represented in the event. To make sure every country is present on race day, the draw for places is done on a per country basis. Each country has a number of places proportional to their number of registrations.
The 9 new countries joining the UTMB club are Bangladesh, Brunei, Egypt, Jordan, Kosovo, the Maldives Islands, Moldavia, Qatar and Tanzania. The largest delegation, as in all previous years, is from France. However, they make up a smaller proportion of competitors than in previous years. Spain and Italy round out the top 3 and most of the top 20 nations hail from the western hemisphere. There are some important groups from elsewhere, notably China and Argentina.
The UTMB event takes place from August 27th to September 2nd 2018. The signature event, the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, covers 170km of trails through 3 countries, climbing over 10,000m. In its 15th year in history, it has cemented itself as one of the most challenging and prestigious trail races in the world.
