Mile & Stone on the Future of the Golden Trail World Series

French bi-weekly trail business newsletter ‘Mile & Stone’ has a few interesting tidbits on the upcoming Golden Trail World Series this year:

Introduced in 2025, the Broken Arrow Skyrace (California) has moved under the ACG (Nike) banner and joined the Skyrunner World Series circuit.

So, well, while the Nike news is correct, but that Skyrunner World Series piece is completely wrong, but here’s the important nugget:

Alongside Sierre-Zinal and Zegama, [Broken Arrow] was one of the three major events of the GTWS. “We found out at the last minute,” regrets Grégory Vollet, founder and director of the circuit. 

Wow. While Nike’s big prize purse announcement at Broken Arrow was the talk of the town for weeks after, what sort of got swept under the rug is that Nike’s move also meant that the GTWS wouldn’t get a US race on their GTWS calendar as an unfortunate outcome. That’s a huge blow for athletes who had hoped to race in the series and one of those dumb side effects of these “exclusive brand partnerships”. Why can’t brands play nice?

The 40 hours of live coverage reached 17.8 million viewers worldwide (+65% compared to 2024), and the GTWS social media accounts show growth rates of over 100% (90 million video views), indicators that seem to satisfy race organizers.

So clearly they are considering this partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery a huge success.

Pierre Galbourdin (Team Brooks): “With random rankings (ITRA or UTMB) and the lack of benchmarks, like road running times, performances are sometimes normalized on these formats and difficult for the general public to understand. The GTWS do a great job media-wise with excellent content, but it’s hard to compete with the UTMB.”

The storylines are still the big challenge and not just for GTWS, even UTMB needs to do a better job with any race is not the Finals in Chamonix.

[Grégory Vollet] also defends the “flower” courses (four different loops with passes through the finish line at each turn) tested last year: “I received a wave of criticism from everyone who didn’t come; I’d like them to test it first. Those who participated in flower races, like in Il Golfo dell’Isola or Kobe in 2025, gave us great positive feedback. There is a great atmosphere in the fan zone.”

Witnessing the global excitement of the Olympics in Milano/Cortina right now I do feel like there’s a room in our sport for a race format that’s fit for that big stage. But:

… there are technical rules that mean trail running is still far from being able to access the Olympics,” confides Greg Vollet. “Notably the fact that the entire race must be filmed in 4K, which we are incapable of today.

And Greg’s acknowledgement that while ski mountaineering has made it into the Olympics the athletes are far from happy about it:

Now, we must be very careful regarding what is happening with ski mountaineering at the Olympics. What can the Olympics bring to trail running? Visibility. But can’t that be brought in other ways? That’s what we are working on with the GTWS.

Speaking of “challenges” for trail running: So far trail running has relied on the places, the trails, and the mountains runners run through. That was the key secret sauce that explained these incredible efforts of the athletes. The GTWS seems to be trying to change that narrative, away from the place and toward the athletes. That will bring some fascinating consequences and opportunities with it.