Courtney Dauwalter and Vincent Bouillard Both Withdraw From The 2026 UTMB

Courtney Dauwalter and Vincent Bouillard, both former winners of the UTMB, ended their races within 13 minutes of each other early on Saturday at the same point on the course, roughly 68 kilometers (42 miles) into the loop around Mont Blanc. Neither has said publicly why they stopped. Both withdrawals were reported overnight by the French dailies Ouest-France and Le Dauphiné, and both runners are listed as withdrawn on the race’s official LiveTrail tracker.

They were the best known of the night’s withdrawals, and far from the only ones at the front of the field. The tracker’s 7:58 a.m. update counted 177 withdrawals from 2,407 starters, or 7.35 percent of the field. Among the 100 lowest bib numbers, which UTMB assigns to the highest-rated runners on its start list, 21 were already out.

Where the Night Broke the Race

The withdrawals were not spread evenly along the course. LiveTrail’s breakdown by point puts 54 of them at Les Contamines-Montjoie, the first major aid station at 32 kilometers, with another eight runners timed out there. A further 44 came at Les Chapieux, 52 kilometers in. Lac Combal, at 68 kilometers, accounted for 13, and Courmayeur, at 81 kilometers, for 20. None of it happened in bad weather. After Friday’s thunderstorms pushed the start back two hours, Ouest-France reported mild temperatures, little wind and a full moon over the trails.

Bouillard, who won the 2024 UTMB in 19:54:23 while working in research and development for Hoka, according to iRunFar, raced the opening hours at the front. He led through Saint-Gervais at 22.9 kilometers, passing in 1:54:29. The climb to the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme ended that. He covered that section at 4.2 km/h by the tracker’s calculation and reached the refuge in 57th place, 44 positions worse off than at La Balme an hour earlier. His last recorded passage was Lac Combal at 3:43 a.m., 95th, 7:55:04 into the race. Two months before, he had won the Western States 100 in 13:46:15, taking 23 minutes off Jim Walmsley’s course record.

Dauwalter, who won in Chamonix in 2021 and again in 2023, led the women’s race over the Col de Voza after 14.5 kilometers in 1:23:41, then spent the night moving through the field in both directions: 13th woman at Saint-Gervais, back up to fourth at the Croix du Bonhomme, 12th at Lac Combal, where she came through in 8:08:11 and 129th overall. Her position in the overall field is the sharper measure of the night. When she won this race in 2021 she finished seventh overall, and this time she never got back inside the top 80 after Saint-Gervais. LiveTrail recorded her total stopped time at 2 minutes 20 seconds. She had won the Hardrock 100 on July 10 in 26:03:10, a clockwise course record.

Others went with them. Rod Farvard was last recorded at Lac Combal at 3:29 a.m. and Britain’s Josh Wade at 3:48 a.m., the two of them bracketing Bouillard and Dauwalter inside half an hour at the same aid station. Italy’s Andreas Reiterer reached the Refuge Bertone at 5:15 a.m. China’s Fuzhao Xiang and the American Canyon Woodward were both gone at Les Contamines before midnight, and Hungary’s Eszter Csillag stopped after passing through Courmayeur at 6:48 a.m.

Who Is Still Running

Ben Dhiman led through La Fouly at 114 kilometers in 11:36:37, with Baptiste Chassagne 25:21 back and Joaquin Lopez a minute behind Chassagne. Caleb Olson and Antoine Charvolin crossed the Grand Col Ferret two seconds apart, half an hour off the lead. Blandine L’Hirondel led the women’s race through Arnouvaz, 13:20 clear of Rachel Entrekin, with Careth Arnold third.

The race had already lost Ruth Croft, Kilian Jornet, Jim Walmsley and Tom Evans before anyone reached the start line. The leaders are expected back in Chamonix on Saturday afternoon, and the withdrawal count will keep rising well past 177: last year 827 of 2,492 UTMB starters failed to finish, 33.19 percent of the field.