Kilian Jornet, Jim Walmsley, and Tom Evans Out of UTMB 2026

In the week before the start, UTMB lost the three biggest names in its men's field. Kilian Jornet, a four-time winner, announced on August 20 that a knee injury needed surgery and that he would not start. Tom Evans, the defending champion, announced on August 13 that he would not defend his title, without giving a reason. And Jim Walmsley, the course record holder, has withdrawn too: his name vanished from the entrant lists on August 20, and on August 21 Freetrail reported his withdrawal alongside Jornet's. He was dealing with a knee injury too, and he did not move to a shorter race. And on August 26, two days before the start, the defending women's champion followed: Ruth Croft announced she would not start, so this UTMB is being run without either of last year's winners.

Is Kilian Jornet running UTMB 2026?

No. Jornet announced his withdrawal on Instagram on Thursday, August 20. "Sometimes plans change, and this year I won't be running UTMB," the post begins, and he wrote that after several months dealing with a knee injury, he and his medical team have decided surgery is "the best next step," as reported by Canadian Running and franceinfo. The knee has shadowed his whole season. It surfaced before Zegama in May, where he faded to 43rd after running near the front, forced him out of the Western States 100 in June, and kept him from Sierre-Zinal in August. He had been training for Chamonix in the hope it would hold. It did not. Jornet has won UTMB four times, in 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2022, a record he shares with François D'Haene. A fifth win would have made the record his alone.

Is Tom Evans running UTMB 2026?

No. Evans announced on Instagram on August 13 that he would not be back to defend the title he won in 2025, when he pulled away from Ben Dhiman in the second half to win by 33 minutes. "UTMB is one of those races that will always be incredibly special to me," he wrote, but he gave no reason and disclosed no injury. His name was absent from the elite start list UTMB released the same day. What is known is that Evans started the Hardrock 100 on July 10 as a favorite and dropped 58 miles in, and that UTMB comes only seven weeks after. Per Marathon Handbook, no man has won consecutive editions since Jornet in 2008 and 2009, and that streak now survives another year.

Is Ruth Croft running UTMB 2026?

No. Croft, the defending women's champion, announced on Instagram on Wednesday, August 26, two days before the race, that she would not be on the start line. This one is not an injury. "While I felt my fitness has never been so good," she wrote, "today my heart and mind want to be elsewhere." She passed on a piece of advice from Paul Lind, that there are only so many times you can go to the well in 100 miles, and said she wants to make every one of hers count. "My decision was very hard yet obvious to make." Croft came into the week off a fourth Tarawera 100k title and a MaXi-Race Annecy win, and she was chasing the first back-to-back women's UTMB win since Rory Bosio in 2013 and 2014. She signed off "until next time."

Is Jim Walmsley running UTMB 2026?

No. Walmsley has withdrawn. The confirmation came on Friday, August 21, from Freetrail, which reported his withdrawal alongside Jornet's and had Walmsley in its Chamonix studio the same day; French outlets carried the news the same day. That studio conversation is out, published the same afternoon as Jim Walmsley: The Decision to Withdraw from UTMB. The knee that ended his Western States on June 26 made the decision, and he has not raced since that drop. He has not switched to OCC or CCC; he was not entered in any race of the week.

The first sign came a day earlier, on the entrant lists. Walmsley was on the elite start list UTMB released on August 13, with a UTMB Index of 967, the highest of any man in the race, and iRunFar's men's preview, published August 17, still had him signed up. We first noticed on August 20, a day before any confirmation, that his name had vanished from UTMB's official top-ranked runners page for every race of the week, with no word from him, HOKA, or UTMB. The silence had a precedent that pointed the other way: in August 2025 he came off the UTMB list days before the race, reappeared on the OCC lineup without a word, and won it in 5:00:35. This year there would be no reappearing.

Is Sunmaya Budha running UTMB 2026?

No. Budha announced on Instagram on August 23, from Chamonix, that she could not race. "My body is just not ready after an injury last 7 weeks," she wrote: the original injury healed, a compensation injury followed, and she ran out of time despite two weeks with a physio in France. Nepal's best ultrarunner came into the week as a top-ten woman in the field by UTMB Index, off a win at the Lavaredo 120k in June, and hers was the first withdrawal from the women's race. She wrote that she would stay in Chamonix through race week to cheer.

Is Molly Seidel running OCC 2026?

No. The week's withdrawals are not only the men's, and not only the big loop. Seidel, the Tokyo Olympic marathon bronze medalist, was one of the most anticipated names on the OCC women's list, still listed on UTMB's official top-ranked runners page on Thursday, August 20 and gone from it by Sunday, August 23. Freetrail reported on August 23 that she came by its Chamonix studio the day before to say she had decided not to start OCC on Thursday, August 27, and it gave no reason in that account. The studio conversation itself went up on August 22, titled Molly Seidel: Withdraws from OCC, with Freetrail's own summary saying she "discusses her decision to withdraw from the 2026 OCC."

What is happening to the OCC women's race?

It has thinned more than any other field in Chamonix, in the space of four days. Seidel's withdrawal came first. Then Tove Alexandersson, the short-trail world champion and the top-ranked woman on the list, posted on Instagram on August 24 that a bacterial stomach infection she picked up in Chamonix has not cleared, and that she and her team decided against running a 60 kilometer race "with a non-functioning stomach." Two more of the top women have gone quietly: Maude Mathys, who arrived in form off a win at the Trail Verbier St-Bernard 50k, and Andrea Kolbeinsdóttir are both off the entrant list, with no word from either as of August 26. Judith Wyder, Lauren Gregory, Naomi Lang, and Sara Alonso all started on Thursday, and the thinned field produced the closest women's finish of the week: Gregory won by three seconds from Lang, with Alonso third and Wyder sixth.

Who else has come off the start lists?

Three more names slipped off UTMB's top-ranked runners page on August 21, none of them with a word attached. The biggest is Fiona Pascall, gone from the UTMB women's list where she had led the British contingent. Pascall, the younger sister of 2021 Western States champion Beth Pascall, has had the season of her life: a course record at the Hundred Hills 50k in March, a win at the Chianti 120k, first woman at Lake Sonoma in April, and a Western States top ten in June that she partly credited to being charged by a bear in training. Chamonix was set up to be the biggest race of her year.

The other two came off the OCC men's list in the same update. Davide Magnini is one of the fastest short-course runners alive, second at Zegama in 2022 within three minutes of Jornet's course record, and back from a long injury to win last year's Marathon du Mont-Blanc. Kristian Jones, the British Hoka runner, was returning to OCC after racing it last year and sat near the top of the list on a 905 Index. As of August 23 none of the three has said anything publicly, and this week has been a reminder to say that carefully: a name coming off a list is not by itself a withdrawal, though lately it has mostly meant one.

What does the men's race look like without them?

The 2026 men's field was, by the numbers, one of the deepest ever assembled, and even after three withdrawals it was still formidable. Ben Dhiman, second to Evans last year, was the favorite once the three were out, and he won it in 18:16:29. Baptiste Chassagne, second in 2024 and the winner of the Diagonale des Fous in 2025, was second again, and Caleb Olson third. Hannes Namberger, who won Lavaredo this year for the fourth time, was sixth.

The rest of that depth did not last the first night. Vincent Bouillard, who won this race in 2024 and set the Western States course record in June, stopped at Lac Combal at 68 kilometers, and Josh Wade and Rod Farvard stopped at the same aid station within twenty minutes of him. Jonathan Albon and Chris Myers both went out at La Fouly at 114 kilometers. Zach Miller reached Vallorcine, 18 kilometers from the finish, and stopped there. What happened in the race has the rest of it.

The race started in Chamonix at 7:45 p.m. on Friday, August 28, two hours later than planned after UTMB postponed the start for forecast thunderstorms.

Who was confirmed out when UTMB started?

Kilian Jornet is confirmed out, by his own announcement, for knee surgery, and UTMB has now taken his name off its entrant lists. Tom Evans is confirmed out, by his own announcement, reason unstated. Jim Walmsley is confirmed out, his withdrawal reported on August 21 and his own interview about it recorded the same day, and he is not entered in OCC, CCC, or any other race of the week. Ruth Croft is confirmed out, by her own announcement on August 26, so neither 2025 champion started. Sunmaya Budha is confirmed out of UTMB by her own account. Molly Seidel and Tove Alexandersson are confirmed out of OCC, and Seidel has since talked about her decision on Freetrail's podcast. Davide Magnini, Kristian Jones, Fiona Pascall, Maude Mathys, and Andrea Kolbeinsdóttir are no longer listed. Thursday settled the four of those who were entered for the OCC: Magnini, Jones, Mathys and Kolbeinsdóttir have no entry in the race's timing data at all, and neither do Seidel or Alexandersson. Croft is off the UTMB entrant list too, bib 1 with her. That was the position when the field left Chamonix on Friday evening. What happens to these runners now happens in the race itself.