Golden Trail Series Announces Races for 2024

Well well, we’re getting an official announcement, not just one on social media. There’s a news article and it’s paired with a brand new website (which is built on WordPress – for you nerds!) It is a much talked about fact that the Golden Trail Series is “just” a marketing vehicle by Salomon, and as thus one shouldn’t be surprised that Salomon uses the series to well, market their product and therefore select races that are less iconic (one golden?!?!) and more fitting for their regional marketing emphasis. It’s a bummer in some ways, but that series also couldn’t really grow to infinite races, and with new events coming one, some others had to be dropped (Mont Blanc Marathon for example). Salomon also killed the national/regional series races in several regions earlier this month.

What we’re left with is four neat 2-race blocks: 1 in Asia, 1 in Europe, 1 in North America (with a new event in Mexico added rather than (Mammoth Trailfest or the Headlands race) and back to 1 more two event block in Europe. The Final has not been announced yet, like in previous years. Below is the list of races:

• 19^th April: Kobe Trail – 21.3 km/2,109m V+ – Kobe, Japan.
• 26 April: Jinshanling Great Wall Trail Race – 24.2km/1,489m V+ – Chengde City, Hebei Province, China.
• 17^th May: Il Golfo dell Isola Trail – 26km/1,400 m V+ – Noli, Italy.
• 25^th May: Zegama-Aizkorri – 42km/2,736 m V+ – Zegama, Spain.
• 22^nd June: Broken Arrow Skyrace – 21.7 km/1,433 m V+ – Olympic Valley, USA.
• 29^th June: Tepec Trail – 32km/1,800 m V+ – Huasca de Ocampo, Mexico.
• 2^nd August: Salomon Pitz Alpine Glacier Trail – 23.5km/1,700 m V+ – Mandarfen, Pitztal, Austria.
• 9^th August: Sierre-Zinal – 31km/2,200 m V+ – Sierre, Switzerland.
• From 9^th to 12^th October: Grand Final. The race details will be announced at a later date.

I mentioned that Headlands race that was just introduced last year but it’s already killed again – the website is expired. This is one of the less-talked about realities of aligning your race with one of the big series, or promoters. They come, and they go. You as race director need to see how you can support this potentially temporary influx of attention and deal with the aftermath when the circus moves on.

I appreciate Salomon’s strategy from a sustainability point of view. Pairing two events in the same region close together minimizes travel, for GTS staff and racers. But it poses regional challenges. Big prominent races want to be spread out on the calendar, not on back to back weekends. Broken Arrow and Mammoth are on opposite sides of the summer. Broken Arrow is so big now that no other race director would want to put a race on the calendar in the same region just a week prior. Especially not when partnering with a series of this caliber could mean that from one year to the next the strategy shifts and your race isn’t part of their plans anymore.