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ACG Crossed the Line – And No One’s Surprised

9 September 2026

Doug Mayer follows up his articles sharing the views of the Mayor of Chamonix in Trailrunner with a conversation post-event. Three things seem to be the main concern:

Leading up to the race, Laffin put his concerns around UTMB in three buckets: the race itself, the brands that organize activations, and crowds.

And speaking of brands:

“A vending machine was flown to a refuge in the mountains,” Laffin points out. “That’s unacceptable. Another brand was on the vertical kilometer without asking for authorization. Some brands have an approach where they think they can do whatever they want.”

Hmmmm… both “activations” were done by Nike ACG. Unless there was another brand hosting an event on the vertical kilometer. Curious that neither the mayor nor Mayer (ha!) choose to mention the brand by name. Several other brands are called out in the article. No mention of Nike/ACG.

I’m just gonna add a side note here: Can you imagine what it would look like if Red Bull would get interested in the sport of trail running? Like for real?

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