The lottery for the 2014 The North Face Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc has taken place! Lottery draws for its sister races, the CCC, TDS, PTL, and the newly minted OCC, also occurred today. Some 14,000 runners from 75 countries entered the lotteries of these five races. This represents about 4,000 more applicants than the 2013 lotteries. Congrats to all who were chosen!
Here you can search the full entrants list, and below we’ve pulled together a list of top contenders for the UTMB and we editorialize a bit on who is currently registered and who is not. Please note that the UTMB allows late entries for elite athletes and there are likely to be entries via the Ultra-Trail World Tour as well, so we’re certain that a number of elites whose names weren’t in the lottery today will still start the race. This lottery, however, gives us a good baseline for who we’ll see at the pointy end of the field.
As you’ll see below, it appears that there will be an enormous turnover in talent. That is, not a single woman from last year’s top 10 is set to return, as of today’s lottery. And, among the men, only two men from the top five, Miguel Heras and Javier Dominguez of Spain, who were second and third last year, is listed as entering through the lottery. That said, a good chunk of the men from the back half of last year’s top 10 are returning, including Bertrand Collomb-Patton (France), John Tidd (Spain), and Jez Bragg (UK).
The elite American women’s contingent is currently represented by a group of four five fasties, while the men’s American contingent has even more depth. The Grand Canyon R2R2R and Zion Traverse women’s FKT record holder Bethany Lewis is going to give UTMB a go and so is veteran American ultrarunning stud Joelle Vaught. [Added, 1/17: Tina Lewis just entered the UTMB fray, too!] Included in the American men’s field are Anton Krupicka who DNFed late in the 2013 race due to injury and Dylan Bowman, who never made it to the 2013 starting line because he got injured on his first run in France last year. A couple other interesting American men who made it through the lottery include Jorge Maravilla, Jason Schlarb, and Michael Wardian.
On the international side of things for the woman, there’s even more radio silence. Of note in this field is Laurence Klein, a multi-time France marathon national champion and a three-time Marathon des Sables winner, as well as the young, sensational Ruby Muir from New Zealand. In the men’s international field, it’s probably most exciting to see Spain’s short-distance, mountain-running specialist Luis Alberto Hernando put his name in for his UTMB debut. Veteran UTMBer François D’Haene (France) is back, and Japan’s Yoshikazu Hara is on the list again, looking for a second shot after a DNF in 2013.
To put it matter of factly, the lists women and men who are not currently in UTMB are much more of a who’s who than who is in. Scroll below to see who so far isn’t on the list to run. For instance, we can’t imagine a UTMB without Lizzy Hawker or Sebastien Chaigneau at least trying to run. We’ll see as the summer rolls around because, as we said above, elites are given late entry by UTMB’s administration. We will see some of these names slide onto the registration list between now and race day.
Top American Women – 2014 UTMB
- Kelly Cronin
- Leila Degrave
- Bethany Lewis
- Tina Lewis
- Joelle Vaught
Top American Men – 2014 UTMB
- Dylan Bowman
- Topher Gaylord
- Neal Gorman
- Jesse Haynes
- Jeremy Humphrey
- Anton Krupicka
- Jorge Maravilla
- Jason Schlarb
- Michael Wardian
Top International Women – 2014 UTMB
- Uxue Fraile Azpeitia (Spain)
- Laurence Klein (France)
- Ruby Muir (New Zealand)
- Zoe Salt (UK)
Top International Men – 2014 UTMB
- Luis Alberto Hernando (Spain)
- Jez Bragg (UK)
- Erik Clavery (France)
- Bertrand Collomb-Patton (France)
- Vincent Delabarre (France)
- François D’Haene (France)
- Javier Dominguez (Spain)
- François Faivre (France)
- Emmanuel Galt (France)
- Yoshikazu Hara (Japan)
- Miguel Heras (Spain)
- Iker Karrera (Spain)
- Carlos Sa (Portugal)
- John Tidd (Spain)
Top Notable Women Not Currently on the 2014 UTMB List
- Meghan Arbogast (USA)
- Juliette Blanchet (France)
- Rory Bosio (USA)
- Francesca Canepa (Italy)
- Helen Cospolich (USA)
- Katia Fori (Italy)
- Gill Fowler (Australia)
- Lizzy Hawker (Switzerland)
- Audrey Meyer (France)
- Nuria Picas (Spain)
- Emma Roca (Spain)
- Maria Semerjian (France)
- Amy Sproston (USA)
- Silvia Trigueros (Spain)
- Manuela Vilaseca (Brazil)
Top Notable Men Not Currently on the 2014 UTMB List
- Jonas Buud (Sweden)
- Sebastien Chaigneau (France)
- Julian Chorier (France)
- Mike Foote (USA)
- Kilian Jornet (Spain)
- Tsuyoshi Kaburaki (Japan)
- Arnaud Lejeune (France)
- Thomas Lorblanchet (France)
- Timothy Olson (USA)
- Gary Robbins (Canada)
- Xavier Thevenard (France) (Last year’s men’s champion is registered for the TDS instead.)
- Mike Wolfe (USA)
Call for Comments
- Did we miss any top entrants?
- Who do you think will be competing for men’s and women’s wins?
- Who would you most like to see added to the field?
- Did you gain entry to this year’s UTMB or one of its sister races? Tell us about how excited you are to visit the Mont Blanc environs this summer!
