François D’Haene Breaks 30 Hours on the GR20, 10 Years After His First Record

François D’Haene ran Corsica’s GR20 from end to end in 29:46:20 on July 8 and 9, the first time anyone has finished the traverse in under 30 hours and the second time the fastest known time on the route has belonged to him.

The four-time UTMB champion left Calenzana, at the trail’s northern end, at 4:30 a.m. and arrived in Conca at 10:16 a.m. the following morning. His run takes just over 40 minutes off the 30:26:15 that Lambert Santelli recorded in June 2021. Santelli, a Corsican, is the only athlete ever to take this record away from D’Haene, whose earlier mark of 31:06 had stood since June 2016.

The GR20 crosses Corsica’s interior over roughly 180 kilometers (about 112 miles) with close to 13,000 meters (nearly 43,000 feet) of climbing, by the figures Salomon, D’Haene’s sponsor, gave in announcing the record; published measurements of the route vary. Salomon said the attempt was postponed twice while extreme heat covered the island, and that D’Haene finally started in the cool hours ahead of another hot spell. By Vizzavona, the village that divides the route roughly in half, he was more than 50 minutes inside record pace, according to the brand, and he ran nearly the entire southern section in the dark to hold that cushion to the finish.

iRunFar reported that D’Haene’s crew was made up of friends and family, that his children paced him for short stretches, and that he handled the afternoon heat with ice packed into his hat and bandana.

“Ten years after my first record here, 20 years after my very first ultra-trail back in 2006, and as I am 40, knowing that I still have that deep hunger inside, that pure joy of taking on this trail … that is undoubtedly what matters most to me,” D’Haene wrote on Instagram after finishing.

The GR20 record has changed hands among some of the sport’s biggest names. Kilian Jornet brought it to 32:54 in 2009, Guillaume Peretti lowered it to 32:00 in 2014, and D’Haene ran his 31:06 two years after that. The oldest times are not strictly comparable to the new one: as the specialist site Mon GR20 notes, the trail was rerouted over the Pointe des Éboulis in 2016, replacing the Cirque de la Solitude passage, so the marks set by Jornet and Peretti covered a slightly different course. The same site puts a typical hiker’s crossing at 12 to 16 days. The women’s record belongs to Anne-Lise Rousset, who ran 35:50 in 2022.

D’Haene, at 40, has built much of his recent racing life around efforts like this one. He has held the supported record on California’s John Muir Trail since 2017, won the 330K Tor des Géants in 2024, and set a supported record on Colorado’s Nolan’s 14 last July, a mark David Hedges took from him before the end of 2025. He also owns the counterclockwise course record at the Hardrock 100, set in 2021.

The new GR20 mark is not yet official. The full track is public on D’Haene’s Strava, though the kilometer splits are hidden, and verification by the FKT registry, which recently added the GR20 to its list of premier routes in Europe, is still pending.