Back during the Whistler kerfuffle days there were several folks who made their feelings known about their distain for the UTMB/Ironman juggernaut. May vowed to never have anything to do with UTMB again and boldly proclaimed “Fuck UTMB forever” (or something of that sort). So let’s check in and see how we’re doing.
- One of the first to make a very public turnaround was obviously Jim Walmsley – most likely driven by his sponsor Hoka, which is also the title sponsor of the UTMB World Series.
- We’ve also since seen Ellie Greenwood, Canadian ultra runner and coach who spoke out very loudly in support of Gary Robbins and very loudly against UTMB has since has been helping iRunFar with their UTMB coverage.
- Kilian Jornet has not been back himself to Chamonix during UTMB week, but as previously reported, his company NNormal is definitely taking advantage of the crowds UTMB draws to Mont Blanc. Every year NNormal has a large presence and one of the stronger activation game in town.
Now this year we’ve seen two more public voices of the anti UTMB crowd come around:
- Ethan Newberry, aka the Gingerrunner – one of the loudest FUTMB voices on X has premiered one of his movies in Chamonix during UTMB week. I am told he himself was not in attendance, but this still counts.
- John Kelly, who previously has had a bad experience with Ironman racing triathlons and has spoken at length on why Ironman entering the sport of trail running is bad for all of us – has been spotted in Chamonix this week. I am told he’s racing Tor de Geants and that brought him across the pond.
Who’s left on that bandwagon?
