Matt Walsh in his newsletter ‘Trail Mix’ writes:

GTWS will air four races for two hours each live on Eurosport 1 and 2 with their entirety streamed in full, alongside highlights from the rest of the series, on the Eurosport Player/Discovery+ platform. That’s 53 countries, 20 different languages, 74 million viewers on average per month of which 47% claim they are active runners.

So, we’re getting two media partnership announcements in a short couple of weeks. This one feels like a big deal because it’s Eurosport – we shall see how they will package ‘trail running’ and fit it into their presentation format.

The Outside/L’Équipe UTMB announcement feels weird because they announced coverage for Canyons this weekend, but from what I can tell nothing actually happened?

Big organizations tend to move slowly, to much annoyance of people affected by those policies, and by the people writing about them online. But, UTMB “FINALLY” updated its pregnancy policy, and they did it right.

The policy – which includes deferral and priority entry guidelines for athletes that are pregnant, athletes with a partner who is pregnant, and athletes that are adopting or birthing via surrogacy – encourages runners to return to the trails in a safe way and within a timeframe that is considerate of individual circumstances following birth.

Sophie Power, founder of SheRACES is being quoted in the official press release:

“I’m delighted that UTMB World Series is launching a world leading pregnancy deferral policy that supports all women to return to racing when they are ready. At SheRACES we look forward to continuing to work with UTMB World Series going forwards, sharing our insights to ensure more women from all backgrounds participate in these iconic events.”

An interesting nugget added to the bottom of the press release:

The new policy comes as part of a concerted effort by UTMB World Series organizers to encourage more women into the sport and to build on UTMB Groups ongoing commitment to equal opportunities. In line with the actions put in place in the previous years, in 2023, male and female elite athletes will be equally represented on the start line of all three UTMB World Series Finals races at the sports pinnacle event UTMB Mont-Blanc, thanks to the new sports system which sees elite athletes qualify through a series of events throughout the year. UTMB World Series also remains committed to equal media coverage and representation on communication platforms including UTMB Live, as well as equal prize money for male and female athletes.

And another interesting piece is, that the pregnancy policy lives at the URL /inclusion and the headline paragraph hints at more upcoming policy changes and announcements:

UTMB strongly believes in equal rights and opportunities for all members of the trail-running community. We are in the process (bolded by me) of building inclusion and diversity policies on gender, race, age, social class and more. We endeavour to grow and continue to evolve the sport and to make UTMB World Series welcoming for each athlete.

Just announced this weekend live on the Canyons stage in Auburn, CA. The UTMB events calendar is expanding here in the US by adding another Californian race to their offering. This is UTMB’s sixth race in the US, with three of those in California alone. Kodiak is a high altitude race, with all events beginning and ending at 7,000 ft. and the 100 miler climbing to over 10,000ft. Us sea level dwellers are still waiting for some mountain races that aren’t try to kill us – haha.

The UTMB Events calendar is updated.

Via my Safari Translate Tool:

Already a broadcaster of 5 events in 2022 including the UTMB® Mont-Blanc, the L’Équipe group strengthens its partnership with the UTMB® World Series with the broadcast of all the races produced live on the international trail running circuit.

This announcement might give us a clue on the question regarding ‘announcers and commentators’ I raised in the previous post. With UTMB expanding its coverage through L’Équipe, I would assume Outside is “just” syndicating the broadcast to the US audience.

Outside and UTMB announce a new media product:

Our partnership means you’ll get to stream live content from 11 UTMB World Series events in the United States and Canada, including the UTMB World Series Finals in Chamonix, Transvulcania by UTMB®, Canyons Endurance Runs, Doi Inthanon Thailand by UTMB®, and other top trail running events. 

Did they say Canyons? Oh look mom, I gotta be on TV!

But seriously, video coverage seems to be the big land grab these days for trail races. This partnership comes at no surprise as Outside is trying to recover from their NFT disaster. The article doesn’t make it clear if these events will be free to watch live and in replay, or if it will require a subscription.

UTMB picked an interesting selection of races, Western States being absent from the list. I am also curious who they’ll be picking as commentators and announcers for these events.