The 2025 season of the UTMB circuit officially kicks off next week, and the last three winners of the men's finals at Mont Blanc are set to duke it out in what's sure to be a thrilling face-off. Kilian Jornet, Jim Walmsley and Vincent Bouillard are all starting at the UTMB Ultra Trail Chianti Castles 120k race in Italy on March 22, the first time that the three runners have started together.
The 74.5 mile-race starts and ends in the Tuscan commune of Radda in Chianti and takes the runners across characteristically mountainous terrain gaining over 5,200 meters in elevation. If you think in imperial terms, that's just over 17,000ft, which is about half of what they face in Chamonix, so we're expecting to see them moving at a good pace.
Spanish runner Jornet last competed in the UTMB finals in 2022, where he threw down a new record and became the first runner to finish the lap around Mont Blanc in under 20 hours. Since then, he's been busy crushing new records in his Nnormal Kjerag Brut shoes such as climbing all 82 4,000m Alpine peaks in just 19 days, which is why he's listed as the favorite to win in Chianti.
His record at the UTMB only held for a year before Arizona's Walmsley came along and shaved another 12 minutes off it in his Hoka Tecon X 3s, which were but a prototype back then. Last year saw Walmsley DNF at the race, but he had already set an impressive new course record at Western States in June, so we can forgive him for being a bit low in the tank. Footage has only just emerged showing him crushing the Mesquite Canyons 50k last weekend at a blistering pace so we know he's in great shape and hopefully he's been resting up since then.
Last year, out of nowhere emerged unsponsored Vincent Bouillard, an engineer for Hoka who few of us had ever heard of until he sprinted to the finish line in Chamonix under the 20-hour mark. He doesn't have as many long races under his belt as the other two, but last week he shared on Instagram that he's been training at home and recently donned his running spikes for a cross-country race. Home for him is the French Alps and he is younger than the other two, so he remains an intriguing wild card.
There is a caveat to all of this, and that's the fact that Jornet's partner is expecting a baby any minute now, which he recently wrote on Instagram might hamper his efforts.
"Training is going really well this winter, but life has its own plans sometimes! Our little one is due right around Chianti Ultra Trail - where I would like to race for the chance of a golden ticket to Western States," says Jornet, who's keeping his fingers crossed.
As are we, because watching these three unparalleled runners compete won't only be thrilling, but entirely possible – the race is being streamed live at live.utmb.world/chianti.
If you haven't watched a televised ultra marathon before, it's more riveting than you might think. Antoine Aubour, Director of Communications, Marketing and Media at the UTMB Group describes it as "a window into the magic of trail running."
"Each broadcast allows supporters, families, and friends to feel the intensity of the competition, share in the runners' emotions, go behind the scenes of the sport."
The UTMB Ultra Trail Chianti Castles kicks off at 4am local time on Saturday, March 22, which is 3am for UK viewers and means the race starts on Friday night at 10pm EST in the US and 7pm PST. We'll be reporting on all the exciting action, so check back soon for updates on other televised UTMB events.
