Corinne is Elitist

Her words, not mine.

On the latest ‘Rest Day’ episode of Freetrail Corinne Malcolm points out that at the upcoming Golden Ticket races – and last chance to snag one of these coveted tickets – the Canyon Endurance Runs 100K is already sold out. And well, her point is that race directors should/need, to always hold bibs back for anyone (anyone elite enough) wanting to jump in last minute, to chase a Golden Ticket.

I guess I am… ‘ignorant’ might be the word here? But I don’t understand why pro runners can’t register early? Sure, if they fail to get a ticket at one race, they might want another chance later in the “Golden Ticket season”, and pre-registering for several races, just in case, seems costly, but isn’t that sort of part of your elite race calendar planning? Don’t sponsors pay for race entries?

Well, Canyons 100K isn’t really sold out Charity bibs, or ‘UTMB Cares’ entries are still available for that 100K Golden Ticket race, but are $763, ouch.

Maybe it’s a blind sport that UTMB has? At the UMTB Finals, with a larger field, there seems to always be room to “squeeze one more elite runner late in the year onto the entry list”. Or maybe UTMB doesn’t really care to offer this at Canyons, since these entries are for “Golden Ticket chasing”, and that after all is for Western States and not the UTMB Finals. So maybe this expectation should come from the Western States organization, or it should come from sponsors of the Golden Tickets HOKA. But, whatever the reason is here, this seems to something that can be easily solved without requiring big structural changes? But, I am not trying to be snarky here, I don’t understand elite racing, it might just be that “jumping at the last minute into a competitive race” is much bigger thing than I make it out to be.