Fun with UTMB World Series Event Names

So, as of today, May 2025 the UTMB World Series boasts a total of 54 events around the world, including the Finals in Chamonix. (And as a side note, the ECC UTMB World Series Calendar is completely cleaned up and up to date).

The events around the globe fall into two categories:

• events with the word ‘ultra Trail’ in them
• and those that don’t.

There are 40 races with unique names, not with the words ‘ultra trail’ in them and 14 races named ‘ultra trail’ or ‘ultra-trail’ something or another.

Races with unique names not including the word ‘ultra trail’:

• Arc of Attrition
• Valhöll Fin del Mundo
• Tenerife Bluetrail
• Istria 100
• Desert Rats Trail Running Festival
• Mount Yun
• The Canyons Endurance Runs
• Grand Raid Ventoux
• Amazean Jungle
• Quindio Trail
• Trail Alsace Grand Est
• mozart 100
• Trail du Saint-Jacques
• Trail 100 Andorra
• Torrencial Chile
• Kaga Spa Trail
• (Western States Endurance Run) – part of the World Series, not an official UTMB event.
• Val D’Aran
• Restonica Trail
• Trail Verbier St Bernard
• Monte Rosa Walserwaeg
• Speedgoat Mountain Races
• Quito Trail
• KAT100
• Wildstrubel
• Paraty Brazil
• Julian Alps Trail Run
• Grindstone Trail Running Festival
• Nice Côte d’Azur
• Kaçkar
• Chihuahua
• Kodiak Ultra Marathons
• Trans Jeju
• Kullamannen
• Mallorca
• Puglia
• TransLantau
• Patagonia Bariloche
• Puerto Vallarta
• Chiang Mai

Of the ones with ‘ultra trail’ in the name there’s a split in naming convention:

9 events are named “ultra -hyphen- trail’:

• Tarawera Ultra-Trail
• War Horse Ultra-Trail Xiamen
• Ultra-Trail Australia
• Ultra-Trail Snowdonia
• Ultra-Trail Great Wall
• Mountain Ultra-Trail
• Malaysia Ultra-Trail
• Ultra-Trail Ninghai
• Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko

And 4 events just named ‘ultra trail’, without the hyphen:

• Chianti Ultra Trail
• Lavaredo Ultra Trail
• Eiger Ultra Trail
• Ultra Trail Whistler

And the Finals gets an extra special treatment:

• UTMB Mont-Blanc (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc)

The UTMB Finals is another interesting anomaly: The official and original name is “Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc” and thus boasts two hyphens. One for the ‘ultra-trail’ in question, and the second for the world ‘Mont-Blanc’, which is double interesting, cause the name of the mountain is generally not hyphenated. But nowadays the organization rarely writes out the full name and instead refers to the events in Chamonix just with the appreciated UTMB. (The vendor village in downtown Chamonix is still called Ultra-Trail Village.)

The easiest explanation for the difference in hyphenation might be cultural. Certain languages prefer hyphenated words, or don’t. Another thought could be that each race named itself before being acquired/or partnering with the UTMB World Series and UTMB has so far honored the original naming and hasn’t “cleaned this up”? But I am still wondering what the “official wording” might be. The one UTMB prefers? If you consider the naming of “the original”, UTMB itself, one would think the hyphen would be preferred, but the Whistler race is new and has no pre-UTMB history and in that instance the team left off the hyphen.

Is this a big deal? Of course not… but maybe a little. Remember the Fuji 100 naming issue. Apparently UTMB forced Fuji to renamed their event from the long held Ultra-Trail Mt. Fuji (and yes I checked the hyphen and it seemed to have been used in this instance) claiming their legal trademark.

So clearly UTMB cares about this name. And as I’m writing about the various events in the World Series and am constantly stumbling over the question if a specific event has the hyphen or not, clearly I too care enough that I just wrote over 500 words on this quirky detail.

Maybe I need to go and touch some grass.