Toni McCann and Hayden Hawks have won an almost tropical version of the UTMB CCC. For Hawks it meant his second win, after 2017. For McCann it meant a step up, after her OCC victory of last year.

Toni McCann’s name was high on everybody’s list of potential winners. Yet, a hundred kilometres CCC, with more than six thousand metres of elevation isn’t an OCC of 57 kilometres and 3.498 metres of elevation. So could she go for the double, like for example her Adidas Terrex teammate Ruth Croft (New Zealand) did in the past? Or like Jon Albon (Great Britain) did?

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Mlynarczyk follows McCann

Directly from the start, there was just one runner who could follow the South African; Martyna Mlynarczyk. The Polish winner of the Tenerife Bluetrail 73k (3.198m+) of earlier this year, stayed on the heels of McCann until the top of Tete de la Tronche, the beat of a climb (1.400m+) at the beginning of the CCC. But when McCann hit the second timing post, at Arnouvaz she was already alone in the lead.

Yet, the gap never became a comfortable lead for McCann, who made her debut on the 100k. When she arrived at Trient, 71 kilometres into the race and with 4.125 metres of climbing done, Mlynarczyk was only three minutes behind her. The 35 year old Polish Hoka/Garmin runner also only had one hundred kilometres race on her palmares; the European Running Festival 2023. Would that experience help her? Especially now that McCann hit a rough patch?

A close finish?

The answer was no. In fact, McCann increased her lead in the final kilometres and crossed the finish after 11 hours, 57 minutes and 59 seconds: “I didn’t know how I would handle this new distance. During my rough patch at Champex, I made sure to think of my family. That gave me the strength to keep going. I want to thank them for their unwavering support.”

Mlynarczyk finished second in 12 hours, 11 minutes and 12 seconds. Behind her the battle was on for third place. Hau Ha Thi, the Vietnamese Mude Trail Team runner, was holding on to that for most of the race. Yet, just before Trient Rosanna Buchauer passed her and slowly ran away from her. Buchauer reached the finish line in Chamonix in 12:16:55.

Behind her Hau Ha Thi came in fourth, just like last year. She stopped the clock at 12:36:16. Heather Jackson completed the top 5. The American Hoka runner finished in 12:50:55.

Two for Hayden Hawks

In the men’s race Hayden Hawks set back on the first climb to Tete de la Tronche, which the American CCC winner of 2017 passed in thirteenth position. Yet, after Arnavouz, 26 kilometres into the race, he stepped on the gas and when he passed Grand Col de Ferret, the second climb of the day, he was in the lead.

Yet, Adam Peterman wasn’t planning to give up without a fight and took over the lead from his Hoka teammate on the long downhill to La Fouly. However, Hawks put things in order again on the next climb up to Champex-Lac and this time he didn’t let anybody come back. He finished in 10 hours, 20 minutes and 11.

Frano leads and comes back

In the meantime Peter Frano was working on his comeback. The Slovakian ultra runner was in the lead at Arnavouz, 26 kilometres into the race, but fell back to eleventh place during the climb up to the Grand Col de Ferret. Yet, from there on, he started to move up again, overtaking Daniel Jones on La Flégère, the last climb of the day. In Chamonix Frano stopped the clock at 10:27:17.

Only a minute and a half behind him Peterman came in to take third. He also overtook Jones and finished in 10:28:50. For Jones the race was just one climb too much. The New Zealander finished fourth in
10:36:20. Huohua Zhang (China) completed the podium. He arrived in Chamonix after 10 hours, 45 minutes and 34 seconds.

But the man of the day was Hayden Hawks: “I’m very happy to share this podium with Peter, as we had had many great battles over the past few years. It was also great to share it with Adam, especially as we were both injured last year and during this challenge, we both supported each other a lot to overcome those tough moments.”

Photos: UTMB

You can find all the results of the UTMB CCC 2024 here