OCC 2026 Results: Frédéric Tranchand and Lauren Gregory Win

Frédéric Tranchand won the 2026 OCC in 5:10:08 on Thursday afternoon. Lauren Gregory won the women's race in 6:08:07, just three seconds ahead of Naomi Lang, after the two of them raced within a few minutes of each other the whole way round.

Both podiums were settled in Chamonix by mid-afternoon, and the course closed at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night. 1,563 of the 1,945 starters finished.

Who won the OCC 2026?

Frédéric Tranchand of France, in 5:10:08. The men's podium:

1. 1Frédéric Tranchand (FRA) 5:10:08
2. 2Nashon Kiplimo (KEN) 5:14:37
3. 3Miguel Benitez (ESP) 5:17:43

Tranchand went into this race at the top of UTMB's own 50K index list, and he is the only one of its top three who reached Chamonix. Kiplimo finished four minutes and twenty-nine seconds behind him, and Benitez another three minutes and six seconds back.

Three men were still together at the first timing checkpoint. Tranchand, Kiplimo and Rémi Bonnet all came through Champex-Lac, 7.3 kilometers in, at 8:52 a.m. They were not together by La Giète at 18.8 kilometers: Tranchand came through at 9:50, Kiplimo at 9:54 and Bonnet at 9:57. Bonnet has no checkpoint recorded after that one.

Tranchand was ahead of Kiplimo at every checkpoint that followed: 10:10 against 10:16 at Trient, 11:18 against 11:26 at the Col de Balme, 11:58 against 12:07 at Vallorcine, and 12:38 against 12:45 at Argentière. He reached Chamonix at 1:25 p.m. Sylvain Cachard was fourth in 5:21:35, and Francesco Puppi, who won the CCC in 2025 and moved down a distance to be here, was seventh in 5:29:15.

Who won the women's OCC 2026?

Lauren Gregory of the United States, in 6:08:07, forty-first overall. The women's podium:

1. 1Lauren Gregory (USA) 6:08:07
2. 2Naomi Lang (GBR) 6:08:10
3. 3Sara Alonso (ESP) 6:09:11

Three seconds separated first from second, and just sixty-four seconds covered all three of them.

Lang led it almost the whole way, and never by much. She reached every checkpoint from La Giète to Argentière ahead of Gregory, but never by more than a handful of minutes: 10:07 against 10:08 at La Giète, 10:30 against 10:32 at Trient, 11:54 against 11:58 at the Col de Balme, 12:43 against 12:46 at Vallorcine, and 13:30 against 13:32 at Argentière.

Argentière is the last checkpoint before the run-in, 10.8 kilometers from the finish. Both of them were timed into Chamonix at 2:23 p.m., and Gregory took the three seconds that separated their finish times.

Makena Morley was fourth in 6:16:37 and Ida Amelie Robsahm fifth in 6:27:34.

Which favorites did not finish the 2026 OCC?

Rémi Bonnet and Daniel Pattis, who went into the race second and third on the 50K index list behind Tranchand. Bonnet's last recorded checkpoint is La Giète at 18.8 kilometers. Pattis got a lot further, and he was running well when he stopped: eleventh through the Col de Balme, then fourteenth through Vallorcine at 41.1 kilometers at 12:18 p.m., and then nothing. Roberto Delorenzi is also marked as withdrawn.

Petter Engdahl finished, but a long way down from where he had been running. He came through the Col de Balme at 11:53 and Vallorcine at 13:13, which is an hour and twenty minutes for a 7.6 kilometer stretch that took Tranchand forty. He was 110th in 7:03:04.

Judith Wyder went in with the clearest lead of anyone at the top of either list, and she had finished second in each of the last two OCCs. She was sixth in 6:28:44. Laura Hottenrott's last recorded checkpoint is the Col de Balme, and Malen Osa Ansa's is La Giète.

Were runners penalized in the 2026 OCC?

Six of the first thirteen men stopped at Argentière, the last aid station, and almost nobody else near the front stopped anywhere on the course. Francesco Puppi and Alain Santamaría stood there for three minutes, Dawid Malina for one minute forty-one, Luca Del Pero for one minute thirty-four, Anton Gustafsson for fifty-seven seconds and Sylvain Cachard for thirty-eight. Tranchand, Kiplimo and Benitez ran straight through.

iRunFar and Trail Runner both reported five-minute penalties for shortcutting on the descent into Trient, given to Puppi, Santamaría, Malina and Del Pero and announced on UTMB's live broadcast. UTMB itself has published nothing about it, and every stop its own timing recorded is shorter than five minutes. Santamaría finished fifth anyway, and Puppi seventh.

How many people finished the 2026 OCC?

1,563, out of 1,945 who started. That is 80 percent of the field, and it is the figure the race's own timing platform publishes on its statistics page. 498 of the finishers were women, from 613 women who started, a slightly higher rate than the men's 1,065 from 1,332.

382 runners left the course, and the timing points say where. The Col de Balme took the most, 142 of them, and Trient took 114. Those two are the late cutoffs, and between them they account for two thirds of everyone who did not reach Chamonix. Champex-Lac, at 7.3 kilometers, took 21.

What is the OCC race?

Orsières, Champex-Lac, Chamonix: the name is the route. The race climbs out of the Swiss Valais, joins the last third of the UTMB course at Champex-Lac, and then takes the same descents into Trient, Vallorcine and Chamonix that decide the longer races later in the week. It covers about 60 kilometers with 3,500 meters of climbing.

The whole race starts and finishes inside a single Thursday, which is what separates it from the rest of the week. That, and the fact that it draws the fastest single-day mountain-running field of the season. Entry works the way it does for every race here: Running Stones earned at UTMB World Series races buy tickets in the December lottery, and elite places go by UTMB Index.

What changed on the OCC course in 2026?

The 2026 route reworked the upper section with a new passage between Col de Balme and Col des Posettes, topping out at 2,321 meters. The finish moved too. From Les Chosalets runners now follow the Arve down the south side of the valley, pick up the Petit Balcon Sud, and take the traditional descent into the center of Chamonix. Neither change moves the total distance or the climb. The rest is the familiar line, the long haul out of Orsières and Champex-Lac before the last descents.

Who raced the OCC in 2026?

UTMB ranks this field on the 50K category index, and its own top-ranked runners page put Frédéric Tranchand at the head of the men's list on 950. Rémi Bonnet was one point back on 949 and Daniel Pattis third on 937. Francesco Puppi was fourth, then Luca Del Pero, Petter Engdahl, Roberto Delorenzi, Antonio Martínez Pérez and Sylvain Cachard. Jim Walmsley, who won here last year, was not entered in any race this week.

Judith Wyder headed the women's list on 821, with Ida Amelie Robsahm, Sara Alonso and Naomi Lang level on 802 and Laura Hottenrott and Malen Osa Ansa on 788. Wyder had finished second in each of the last two OCCs, both times behind Miao Yao, who entered the CCC this year.

Lauren Gregory and Makena Morley were the highest-ranked American women on the list, on 780 and 777. They finished first and fourth. Cade Michael and Christian Allen led the American men, level on 877.

The lists moved all week. Three names came off the OCC entry lists in the five days before the start: Molly Seidel from the women's, Davide Magnini and Kristian Jones from the men's. What happened to the week's big names.

What time did the OCC 2026 start, and when did the course close?

The race started at 8:15 a.m. CEST on Thursday, August 27, in Orsières. Four waves went off, a quarter of an hour apart, and the last of them left at 9:00. The 14 hour 30 minute limit ran from that last wave, and the finish line in Chamonix closed at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night. The last finisher was timed in a few minutes after that.

Where are the full OCC 2026 results?

UTMB Live has the finish times and the finish order, and LiveTrail, which does the timing, has every runner's splits and the race's own statistics page. Seven timing checkpoints sat between Orsières and the finish: Champex-Lac, La Giète, Trient, the Col de Balme, Vallorcine, Argentière, and then Chamonix.

Champex-Lac is where the OCC joins the UTMB course, and it is the first point where the race tends to make sense. The Col de Balme checkpoint was new in 2026, on the reworked section, and Argentière is the last one before the rerouted run-in. The OCC 2026 race page carries the podium alongside this one.

What happened at the 2025 OCC

Storms forced the organizers to cut the high sections and delay the start, and the race ran on a 61-kilometer alternate course. Jim Walmsley held off a late charge from Cristian Minoggio to win in 5:00:35, 20 seconds ahead of him at the finish, with Andrzej Witek third.

Miao Yao won the women's race in 5:35:13 for her second OCC title in a row, though not on the day. She crossed the line second behind Joyline Chepngeno, whose result was later nullified after a doping sanction. Judith Wyder and Maude Mathys completed the podium.