Western States Qualifying Races

2 September 2022

The WS board just announced the qualifying races for 2023 and 2024.

For the 2023 race lottery, the qualifying period is November 8, 2021 through Sunday November 6, 2022. You must run a qualifier off the 2023 qualifying races list below to enter the 2023 race lottery.

For the 2024 race lottery, the qualifying period is November 7, 2022 through Sunday November 5, 2023. You must run a qualifier off the 2024 qualifying races list below to enter the 2024 race lottery

(Most) all changes are adjustments of international races, adding a few distances at already established events or reshuffling as the UTMB World Series is changing what races are included.

A few notes on the list:

Both the Altai Ultra Trail and the Golden Ring are races in Russia and are still included in the list of qualifying races. Given the global sanctioning of Russia due to their unjust war against Ukraine this is interesting to see.
On the 2023 list were eight races in China which all got cancelled, most likely due to COVID-19. There are none on the list for 2024.
Less than a third are US races, which should create lots of opportunities for international racers to come and run WS.
I don’t think there were any changes to US races. (Let me know if I missed some.)
There are six races in Oregon, and three of those are 100Ks.
There are two races in Washington State, Big Foot 200 and Cascade Crest.
FatDog 120 is the only race in British Columbia, Canada that’s a qualifier.

If you’re interested in how WS selects races, they have a very clear written document laying it all out.

Our selection criterion is based solely on the size of the race – we are basically allowing the runners to decide which races we choose as qualifiers. We start with the 30 largest U.S. 100-mile trail races. Then we add established foreign and U.S. trail races of 100-km or more that are of equivalent size.