By Mathias Eichler
Yo Saturnalia!
Get ready for a fun and festive holiday 10K trail race at Squaxin Park in Olympia, WA on December 13.
Yo Saturnalia!
Get ready for a fun and festive holiday 10K trail race at Squaxin Park in Olympia, WA on December 13.
Before the Autumn weather blows our summer memories away I wanted to spend a moment thinking back at this year’s WMTRC in CanFranc, Spain. It’s a very unique event on our calendar coming around only every other year and deserving some deeper thoughts and observations. The World Trail and Mountain Running Championship is organized in partnership between the international federations and organizing bodies of World Athletics, ITRA and WMRA – it’s put on not just a private events management company like many our other races are.
Matt Walsh (TrailMix) has a good piece about the event, pondering the organizers behind trail running’s only event where runners race under their National Flag, rather than for their sponsor. This makes the event really unique, and for this alone it’s worth having this event exist and be talked about. It’s also the event most likely showing us a way toward what trail running in the Olympics could look like. Or at least from a perspective of the team make up, the national federation support, and the race scoring. Many people fear that the race courses we will see at the Olympics will be massively watered down and neutered and share few similarities with actual trail and mountain running. The location of CanFranc showcased the true beauty of trail and mountain running and needs to be celebrated for it.
But speaking of flags, this event created the perfect stage for some real life politics oozing into our sport, which usually is void of anyone taking a stand or making a statement.
At the finish line Francesco Puppi raised a Palestinian flag in solitary with the people of Gaza. His words on Instagram:
The only side I will ever stand for is that of the oppressed, the weak, the people whose fundamental rights are denied and erased.
The only flag I’m carrying is the universal flag.
I’m ashamed, and scared, by the lack of empathy shown by so many. We are talking about people, just like me and you.
Standing for human rights is, or should be, the universal language.
Jim Walmsely took a more muted tone. During his race Jim is shown in pictures having wearing a hat with the USA lettering taped over and his blue shirt seemed to have been altered at the sleeves hiding the bold white lettering. I reached out to Jim for comment, but have not heard or read a statement as to the reasons behind it. I can take a guess, but I also understand as to why he wouldn’t say anything further. Would probably lead to immediate deportation in this great land of the free and home of the brave.
The runners competing seemed to have universally loved the courses. They loved how challenging it was, and how hard and steep the terrain they were presented with was. Trail runners are the antithesis of road runners, who want their courses to be fast, flat, and smooth, to allow for PRs. No, trail runners embrace the challenge. The harder the better. Amazing!
The pictures this event created were some of the best advertising for our sport, and if these races were meant to be a showcase for the Olympics it would really behoof the organizers to take note and never for a second think of confining trail running into some weird forced “flower format” short course, on fake terrain – what the mountain bikers are treated with. Even if this would mean that the’d have to be far away from the actual host city, akin to how sailing and surfing is treated.
CanFranc introduced a beautiful location to a global audience. The Pyrenees are the birthplace of Kilian Jornet and are no ‘new terrain’ for trail runners of course, but in our global circuit, especially the one receiving the media attention, it’s fantastic to get to know trails and mountains that don’t look like Mont Blanc or “California carpet”. Especially in the ultra distance world we have so few really iconic races – there are many great ones – but I’m talking “iconic” here, that an event like the WMTRC that travels to new location every other two years is such a great way to showcase a new and different side of our sport.
The official website the Canfranc organization produced was atrocious – similarly bad as the Innsbruck one was two years ago, so there seems to be some tradition here, sad. For a relatively new event, with rules and formats unknown to the audience it’s paramount to create a web presence that explains, informs and allows folks to navigate the sections with ease.
Yes, even the Soccer World Cup or most Olympic websites are a minefield of competing agendas and are often impossible to navigate but until we have media partners to understand how to bring the sport to the spectators we need the organizations to step up and do more than just post on Instagram and stream on YouTube.
There’s something fun and different about the podiums, and medals, and ranking and I am here for all of it. Again, I wish there’d be more explanation and education around system but it’s fun and draws the audience in.
I also love the distances they chose. It introduces new runners to a global audience in a sport that is often dominated by long distance runners and races.
To conclude let’s talk about the biggest challenge the WMTRC faces: the racing year and how this event fits into the elite athlete’s calendar who most of them have sponsor obligations.
This year’s WMTRC was just six weeks after the UTMB Finals. We saw folks compete in both, UTMB races and then line up for WMTRC with mixed results. Folks who omitted UTMB altogether faired better, others who stepped down in distance at UTMB to prioritize WMTRC did well too. Many racers suffered from the overcommitment. That’s not great for the athletes, and not great for our sport. Is UTMB the ‘golden calf’ that needs to be protected at all costs? Not necessarily, but the UTMB Finals in Chamonix are the only event on our annual calendar where ALL elites are lining up and the media is there to cover it. Of all the really big trail events around the globe that are happening each year, UTMB is the only one that consistently draws the largest pool of elite athletes – and compared to the US races (Hardrock, Wester States) – it does not limit the field size for elites. Therefore if WMTRC wants to succeed it should place its event on the calendar where runners have a chance to race both events without sacrifices or compromises.
Heading into the southern hemisphere there are plenty of weeks on the calendar between Oct – Feb where trails and mountain terrain are in prime condition for racing, but many of these locations pose logistical challenges and often force runners to extend their season into the winter.
In the northern hemisphere there’s a relatively short weather window where the mountains are accessible but any weekend WMTRC chooses will overlap with an already existing event. No matter what WMTRC does it will create challenges for runners. My take is that the early summer (in the northern hemisphere) is much more amicable for a global world championship than the late season where many runners are already spent. Putting WMTRC somewhere between late May to early July would allow runners to focus on WMTRC early in their season, and then recover and refocus on UTMB. And yes, the early season is usually occupied by Western States, but if you consider the global nature of WTMRC, and how small the field of elites is that races Western States each year WS would really not draw too much competition away from WMTRC. Further WMTRC offers a variety of distances drawing not just long distance runners.
So, a WMTRC early in the season would be a win for the runners and the future of the event.
Where’s the final full medals table? Anyone? I am still asking for this. I’ve looked again at the all the website that chose to cover the event and cannot find it. Even Wikipedia which has a summary of previous WMTRC events has not been updated with the latest results. So, I created the table myself.
Here are the final medal standings for the WMTRC 2025 for each country.
| PLACE | COUNTRY | GOLD | SILVER | BRONZE | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uganda | 3 | 4 | 2 | 9 |
| 2 | Kenya | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| 3 | France | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| 4 | USA | 2 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| 5 | Italy | 2 | 1 | 4 | 7 |
| 6 | Spain | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| 7 | Switzerland | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| 8 | Germany | 3 | 3 | ||
| 9 | Sweden | 2 | 2 | ||
| 10 | Great Britain | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 11 | Finland | 1 | 1 | ||
| 12 | Nepal | 1 | 1 | ||
| 13 | Canada | 1 | 1 | ||
| TOTAL: | 20 | 21* | 19 | 60 |
________
* (Benjamin ROUBIOL and Louison COIFFET of France tied for second place in the long run – and yes, they held hands at the finish line!)
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