GTWS Series About to Kick Off with New Team Competition

I had previously mentioned this new team ranking and just ahead of the season kickoff event at Zegama this weekend we get some more insight into how this will all work and what brands are lining up their athletes for this:

• ASICS Trail Team
• Brooks Trail Runners
• NIKE ACG
• Run2Gether On Trail
• Salomon
• Kailas Fuga Team
• New Balance Running
• Scott

Ostentatiously missing are brands like Adidas and Hoka. But even Nnormal with their strong field targeting GTWS events I am surprised not to see listed.

How this all will work:

The Team Ranking is determined by combining the results of each team’s top two men and top two women in every race. Their finishing positions are added together to produce the team score for that event, making every position count and consistency a decisive factor across the field.

It will definitely be fun to follow along and see if this ‘yet another new thing in trail’ will gain any traction.

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Small side note here:

A post on the GTWS published on 04/10/2026 is titled “Québec Mega Trail: the Beast of the East“.

Maybe something got lost in translation here, and if there is I’d love to know. I can’t find any references online to the Québec Mega Trail being called this. I am curious on why they chose to label that race “Beast of the East”? There’s an actual race called ‘Beast of the East 100‘ in North Carolina. Or maybe they just wanted to get the word “beast” into one of their headlines after their lost their US event this year and the Skyrunner World Series returns to the US at ‘Beast of Big Creek‘?