The 2026 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc was one for the ages, with Ben Dhiman and Blandine L’Hirondel completing the 108-mile megaloop around Mont Blanc in the fastest men’s and women’s times in history.
But we’ve lauded, recounted, and dissected the innumerable successes of the weekend plenty. (See: Our analysis of the fastest shoes, Dhiman on why the journey is priceless, L’Hirondel on nearly losing the victory miles from the finish, runner-up Rachel Entrekin on eschewing speedwork, and the race the locals can’t stop talking about.) You learn more from failure than success, they say, which is why it’s time for our annual roundup of what happened to the pre-race favorites who didn’t make it to the finish line.
The data from the race as a whole tells us little about what happened to the elites this year, but it’s fun to examine anyway: Of 2,406 starters, 725 did not finish for a 30.1% (or three out of 10) DNF rate. Women fared slightly worse than men, but there were also a lot fewer of them. Of the 419 women starters, 152 (36.3%) DNFed. In the men’s race, 1,988 started and 574 (28.9%) DNFed.
The drops were largely congregated in two spots: Courmayeur (81K/50 miles), which comes after the worst descent of the race (think: very steep, very dusty, very long) and smack in the middle of the biggest climbs; 138 runners ended their race there. Another 122 dropped just 11 miles later in Arnouvaz, which comes after a long stint on a beautiful, flowy balcony trail past not one but two idyllic refugios and right before the grunt up to the course high point, Grand Col Ferret.
Evening thunderstorms, a two-hour delay, and a slight reroute set the stage for a sinister start. But the storms parted just in time for the 7:49 p.m. departure on Friday, August 29, and gave way to near-perfect temperatures and a tacky, fast course. The favorable weather undoubtedly contributed to the historically fast times at the front of the race and the slightly lower DNF rate than last year, when 33.2% dropped, many during a very cold, snowy, and wet night. (Curiously, the DNF rate was higher—36.3%—at an especially hot 2024 UTMB.)
The weather of course is just one piece of the puzzle. Queue the long list of usual suspects: Injury, illness, race mismanagement, and perhaps the most dreaded, a lack of will to proceed. Here’s what did in your favorite runners this time.
Jim Walmsley, DNS
You can’t make it to the finish line if you don’t even make it to the start line—which was the heartbreaking case for the 2023 champ. Jim Walmsley, 36, withdrew just days before the race, citing a nagging knee injury that also contributed to him DNFing Western States earlier this summer. “I have to train a bit around what I can handle, focus more on PT exercises, and looking forward to take some time to cheer on friends this week,” he said.
Kilian Jornet, DNS
The same day that Jim Walmsley withdrew, four-time UTMB champion Kilian Jornet, 38, shared eerily similar news. The day before, he went on a massive training run on the course from Courmayeur, Italy, to Chamonix—that’s 56 miles and at least 15,000 feet of climbing and descending—to get in a final long run and collect data on his own nagging knee injury.
“I saw after five hours when I was feeling very good, the pain and all the other problems were again there,” Jornet shared in a video while hiking with his youngest daughter on his back. “I decided to not run UTMB and to focus on some interventions to solve the problem for good.”
At least he was in good company.
Canyon Woodward, DNF at Les Contamines (32K)
North Carolina’s Canyon Woodward (who took eighth at Western States in June) was the first of the elites who toed the line to succumb to arguably the biggest winner of the week: the Chamonix stomach flu. “Friday I felt good enough to get out of bed and decided to give it a whirl,” he said. “I felt good and ran well for about 16 miles, then I think my stomach caught wind of the scale of the adventure I was plotting and said heck no.”
The Trail Runner team regrets to inform you it conducted far more investigative reporting on this bug than it would have liked to this week and can confirm it’s nasty, leaving victims drained of energy days after the other uncongenial symptoms subside.
Fuzhao Xiang, DNF at Les Contamines (32K)
You may know her from her two runner-up performances at Western States, but China’s Fuzhao Xiang is a true mountain runner who’s finished as high as fourth at UTMB. This summer she’s been managing an ankle injury (we believe from Western States, where she finished seventh). She wasn’t sure she was going to toe the line on Friday, she said after the race. In fact, her coach recommended against it. “Yet I have always believed you will never know the outcome unless you give it a try.”
Together with her team, she decided they would make the call at Les Contamines at mile 20. While less than a fifth of the way into the race, it would be her longest run since States. “Every kilometer on the trail, along with the entire lead‑up to the race, was a battle,” she said. “A struggle with my own mind, and a fight against injury. I have no regrets about choosing to start.”
Courtney Dauwalter, DNF at Lac Combal (68K)
Courtney Dauwalter, 41, won UTMB three times in her first three tries. The second two attempts haven’t fared as successfully on paper—but we’re pretty sure Dauwalter would say that’s beside the point. She announced her return a month after winning the Hardrock 100 (again) in a course-record time (again) in July. Of course, this double isn’t unprecedented for the queen of ultrarunning. The last time she won UTMB, it was after winning Western States (in a course record) and Hardrock (in a course record) earlier that summer.
But part of the fun in ultrarunning is you just never know exactly what’s going to happen—including in your recovery.
We’ve heard some unverified reports that Dauwalter took an early wrong turn, putting her in sixth at Notre Dame de la Gorge shortly after the 50K (31-mile) mark. She slipped through the top 10 from there, ultimately calling it a day (or should we say night) at Lac Combal (mile 42) before the final climb and descent into Courmayeur. It seems like that course-record effort at Hardrock may still have (understandably) been in her legs:
“We fully believed,” she wrote on Instagram. “We didn’t know if Hardrock still lingered, we didn’t know how my body would do, and we were ready for any result as long as we tried. Because how do you know if you don’t give it a shot?”
Vincent Bouillard, DNF at Lac Combal (68K)
Lac Combal was a popular hang-out spot for former champions this year. A big narrative coming into the 2026 UTMB would be how the plethora of elite runners doubling back from Western States would fare. We predicted—based on reams of historical data—that the answer would generally be “not well.” Unfortunately, we were right.
After winning Western States in a course record this June, Bouillard returned to UTMB for the first time since his breakout win in 2024. A repeat was not to be. He led the race early through Saint Gervais (mile 14), but lost a huge amount of ground once the true mountains began. Like Dauwalter, he abandoned the race at the 42-mile mark. Bouillard hasn’t publicly stated what happened, but we would not at all be surprised if States was still in his legs—not to mention that the training required for UTMB (a mountain race) is wildly different from States (a gloried road race in a hotbox).
Rod Farvard, DNF at Lac Combal (68K)
After taking ninth in his UTMB debut last summer, Rod Farvard went all-in on UTMB this year. He won the Andorra 105K in June, a super hard mountain race that serves as a good simulator and stimulus for the big lap around Mont Blanc. He stuck his nose in the race from the get-go, running near and even at the front until the real climbing starts after Notre Dame de la Gorge. But a knee injury which he was managing during training proved unmanageable under the demands of this simultaneously very steep and very fast race.
“Knee did not hold up unfortunately,” Farvard wrote on Strava. “Manageable through training but racing hard really aggravated it by the time we got to Notre Dame. [H]obbling down descents so it was an easy call but for sure bummed! [L]ong road of rehab ahead.”
Eszter Csillag, DNF at Courmayeur (81K)
While it’s the most popular place to DNF, very few elites dropped in Courmayeur this year—perhaps because the whole thing would be caught on the livestream. Hungary’s Eszter Csillag, 41, was an exception. While we’re not sure what happened to the two-time Western States podiumer and top-five UTMB finisher, she started the race with a sizable amount of KT tape wrapped around her knee—rarely a good sign.
Chris Myers, DNF at La Foully (127K)
After finishing second at Western States last year, Chris Myers, too, decided to make UTMB the focal point of his year. Like many Americans, he enjoyed an extended training camp in the Alps this summer, sharing his (gorgeous) training log illustrations along the way. Executing on race day requires so many things to go right beyond executing the training. Add to the list: Not ignoring the open blisters on your feet the week of the race.
Myers put himself in position from the gun, moving up to as high as third going over Col du Bonhomme. But ultimately, his foot kicked him to the ground. “The Monday before the race my foot started to swell painfully and I ultimately made the decision to start taking antibiotics the day before the race,” Myers wrote on Instagram. “The result was a downward spiral.”
Martina Valmassoi, DNF at Arnouva (99K)
Italy’s Martina Valmassoi made the leap to professional ultrarunning after winning TDS in 2022 as a photographer for Salomon. Now on their athlete team, she’s since finished top 10 at both UTMB and the world trail running championships. She ran an exceptional first half of the race on paper, sitting in fourth and fifth through the crux in her home country.
But looks can be deceiving. She was given a bad “mechanical” day, she said, burning matches essentially from the start. “I’m actually really surprised I made it that far at really good speed,” she continued. The toll of the early effort materialized going up Grand Col Ferret. It “was just too far to grind my teeth more. I have been injured enough in the past, I know how little it can take to turn an uncomfortable situation into a massive issue so I decided to be grateful for having fought hard for 100km.” She retraced her steps down the mountain to have her bib cut off.
Zach Miller and the (Entire) North Face Team: Jon Albon, Josh Wade, Elsey Davis, Kaytlyn Gerbin, DNF
Arguably the most heartbreaking DNF of this bunch came from fan favorite (and former UTMB runner-up) Zach Miller. He started the race in classic Zach Miller style, that is to say, right at the front. He was in the mix through Courmayeur, yo-yoing between fifth and seventh until Grand Fol Ferret. But then the wheels came off, and once again in classic Ziller style he refused to quit. We spoke with one elite athlete who saw him sitting on the side of the trail in Switzerland, still determined to make it to the finish line. That was not to be; his race ended in Vallorcine at mile 95, possibly after getting pulled from the course.
We’re still not sure exactly what plagued him, but we’ve also heard reports that the North Face team house was hit by the Chamonix flu, including some of their athletes racing shorter distances. Ultimately, the entire North Face squad racing UTMB—including an all-star cast of Jon Albon, Josh Wade, Elsey Davis, and Kaytlyn Gerbin—DNFed.