When the partnership between UTMB Mont-Blanc and Ironman was announced in May 2021, it was immediately obvious to everyone that quite a lot would change. In the UTMB circuit races-obviously-but in the trail running world in general; since in one way or another, the competition that takes place around Mont Blanc is considered the queen of the sport.
UTMB® World Series
What happened next was exactly what we expected: UTMB created its own world race circuit – on the other hand, if Salomon does it with the Golden Trail Series, why not me? – of which the events held Chamonix in late August will be the culmination, the perfect season finale. UTMB World Series is thus born.
Like any self-respecting circuit, this is a group of competitions, scattered around the planet, in which one must participate in order to then aspire to the finals. All this with a new technical partner ready to invest a lot, whose name was an open secret for a few months only to be revealed in October 2021: Hoka (formerly Hoka One One). Now-beyond the huge media and economic operation that is more than legitimate, business is business – the first thing I asked myself was: But is this thing here, for the trail running world, better or worse? My first thought went to the athletes elite, who, in a sport that is already enormously fragmented institutionally and organizationally, will have to choose the races in which to participate more and more wisely: they are unlikely to be able to keep their foot in the door at more than one circuit. But for every elite athlete, there are a thousand amateurs like you and me, who then are the real volume (in terms of participation and inducement) that revolves around this whole circus: what does it change for us?
How it works
Before anything else, let’s try to understand how the circuit works. The year 2021 was a transition year, and the 2022 entries had a mix of old and new rules that were so complicated (and partly nonsensical) as to make it all very surreal. The first result was that many-having sensed that from next year it would be more difficult to participate-registered en masse for UTMB 2022. This was also made possible by the fact that part of the new rules allowed hundreds of people who would not have had the necessary ITRA points but had participated in a race “by UTMB” and earned some running stones to attempt the lottery. In short, thousands of names in the lottery salad bowl, less likely to be chosen: Mattarella was drawn for the second consecutive time, while I was left at the post waiting for the next round.
If you didn’t understand any of the previous paragraph, you can rest assured for two very good reasons:
- you’re in good company and
- Now let’s figure out the important thing: how it works from 2023 onward
The first thing to know is that your ITRA points are no longer worth anything. Or rather, they are no longer worth anything to UTMB, no more than your Esselunga strawberry points were worth before. The only way to participate in UTMB World Series finals (so UTMB, CCC, OCC) now is to participate in at least one of the circuit races, to date 25 events in 16 countries, defined as “by UTMB” and collect the phantasmagorical running stones above: more running stones you accumulate, the better your chances of being drawn in the lottery and beating the final monster of the tenth level.
If you are sifting through the list you may notice that the assignment of the number of stones to individual competitions then appears to be – how shall we say – particularly Creative, that is: Panda (beautiful name, okay, enjoy the opening graphic as well ) by UTMB and Thailand (long live originality) by UTMB award as many as 9 running stones even in short 50k races, while much longer and more technical competitions (such as Eiger Ultra Trail by UTMB) award only 3 measly running stones.
Find all the rules in detail here.
Other things to know
One piece of bad news (or at least one of the) is that in Italy we have only one race on the circuit; I’m talking about the LUT, the Lavaredo Ultra Trail (actually the Lavaredo Ultra Trail by UTMB, sorry). Which means that even registering for the queen of races in the Dolomites will become as easy as hitting the lottery, as we will all be there to attempt the LUT lottery and then-if the draw is positive and the race is over-attempt to register for the UTMB lottery.
Another piece of bad news is that some races included in the circuit in 2021 have already left in 2022. For example, if by chance – like me – you had signed up for the
MIUT
for 2022 because it gave you 3 running stones in 2021, know that you will be left high and dry. Of course, running in Madeira will still be beautiful, but I admit that after the negative outcome of the UTMB 2022 lottery I was at least hoping to pocket those blessed running stones to attempt the UTMB 2023 lottery. Instead.
Ah. Forgot. This one is important. Over at running stones (the number of which determines solely the amount of chance you will have of being drawn in the lottery) you will also need to have completed qualifying races for the distance: look for the loghino qualifier 100M If you’re aiming for UTMB, qualifier 100K If you’re aiming for CCC and qualifier 50k If you’re aiming for OCC. It must be said that at least of these kinds of qualifying competitions there are hundreds of them.
In short, what to say. If we want to look at the glass half full I can imagine that all the circuit events will gain in organizational quality, of course to find out you have to be able to get in. See you at the next LUT lottery: all assembled and hopeful, strictly with FFP2 mask by UTMB, ça va sans dire.