It’s time for some serious climbing this weekend, July 19-21 2024, with the Speedgoat Mountain Races in the USA and the Eiger Ultra Trail in Switzerland, both part of the UTMB World Series.
The longest race in Switzerland started yesterday morning, July 17, at 8am. It’s the E250 Unesco Trail; a trail for teams of two or three runners through the World Heritage Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch. The trail is 250 kilometres long and the ultra runners have to climb 18.000 metres. They have 95 hours to finish it. To help them, there are refreshment posts on the way and life bases; places where the athletes can get food and rest.
Andreas Reiterer
The longest solo race at the Eiger Ultra is the E101; the 101 kilometres race (6.700m+). Andreas Reiterer (La Sportiva) is the big favourite on paper. The Italian ultra runner won this year the Chianti Ultra Trail 103k race, the Panorama Ultra 65k at the Innsbruck Alpine Trailrun Festival and finished sixth at the Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120k.
Other interesting names on the start list are those of Aleix Toda (Spain, Compressport), Ramon Manetsch (Swiss, Salomon), the winner of the Madeira Island Ultra Trail 82k, Francesco Cuco (Italy, Altra) and Any Symonds (Great-Britain, Scott Running), the winner of last year’s Wildstrubel 113k race.
Hannah Osowski (US, Dynafit) is the biggest name on the start list for the women’s race. She finished fifth this year in the Ultramarathon 73k race at Transvulcania La Palma Island. Her biggest competitors are Sandra Sevillano Guerra (Spain, Millet), Flavie Bruyneel (France, Cimalp) and Emilie Collomb (Italy).
E51 full of big names
The E51 women’s race – 51 kilometres, 3.100 metres of climbing – has a very interesting line up: Sophia Laukli (US, Salomon), Núria Picas (Spain, Buff), Fiona Pascall (UK, Salomon), Zegama winner Sylvia Nordskar (Norway Hoka) Holly Page (UK) and Kim Schreiber (both Adidas Terrex) to name just a few.
Speedgoat
The longest race at Speedgoat is the 52 kilometres ultra (3.422m+). Here it’s probably going to be a battle between Jazmine Lowther (Canada), the number two of Transgrancanaria 100m last year, the Americans Emkay Sullivan, runner-up at the Hoka Canyons 100 this year, Brittany Charboneau, Mali Noyes and Kelly Wolf. If she has a good day, Juliette Soule (Australia) will be a contender as well. This year she finished sixth at the Ultra-Trail Australia 50k.
Adam Peterman (US) is the highest ranked runner in the men’s race. He finished third this year at the Broken Arrow Skyrace 46k. In 2022 he won Western States. His competition will come from David Sinclair, Chad Hall and Zachary Garner (all US), Samuel Hendry (Canada) and Gediminas Grinius (Lithuania).
Archive photo UTMB
