Overview
- The week began Monday with the PTL starting from Chamonix, a 300 km, unmarked team route that opened the multi‑race festival and included the event’s first amputee starter.
- The PTL is run by teams of two or three over roughly 300 km and 25,000 m of climb with a 151‑hour limit and compulsory group finishes, a format that tests navigation and endurance rather than pure speed.
- Organisers confirmed live coverage of the main UTMB race, which starts Friday over about 174 km with 9,900 m of climb, and said they will enforce new measures such as banning trekking poles in protected zones and requiring red rear lights on headlamps.
- More than 10,000 runners and an expected crowd of about 100,000 are set to flow through a town of roughly 9,000 residents, prompting the mayor to warn the event has outgrown Chamonix’s capacity and some locals and shops to call the week disruptive.
- UTMB has grown from a single 2003 race into a global business that organisers say brings roughly €45 million to the valleys and reports about €30 million in group turnover, a scale that fuels both economic benefit and environmental and logistical debate.