Kilian Jornet has a habit of doing things no one else does. Now he wants to do one more.
The greatest male trail runner of his generation announced Monday that he will race the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) this August — his first appearance at the event since 2022. If he wins, he will stand alone as the most decorated male finisher in the race’s history, breaking a tie with French ultrarunner François D’Haene and presumably making the rest of us feel worse about our own fitness choices.
Jornet has won UTMB four times: 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2022. That last one came 14 years after his first. Most athletes would have called it a career. Jornet apparently called it a warm-up.
“I’ve been back in 2009, 2011, 2022 — and each time I run it, I learn something I didn’t know before,” he wrote on Instagram. “I’m coming back 18 years later, and I still feel like there’s more to learn, more to give, more to discover about what my body can do at this distance.”
He’s 38, for context.
A Packed Summer Calendar
The UTMB announcement is part of a three-race season Jornet unveiled this week through his brand, NNormal. He will also line up at the Western States Endurance Run and Switzerland’s Sierre-Zinal — a race he has won nine times, because apparently winning it eight times felt incomplete — all within a two-month stretch.
The combination raises an obvious question: could Jornet become the first man to win both Western States and UTMB in the same calendar year? No male runner has ever pulled it off. Two women have — Courtney Dauwalter in 2023 and Katie Schide in 2024 — which says something both about their abilities and about the fact that Jornet is setting his bar against the highest possible standard.
He came third at Western States last year after getting sick during the race. “Somewhere deep in the canyons I felt like I was starting to get in tune with what my body could do at that pace and distance in the heat,” he wrote. “I want to go back and build on that.” Third place while ill, by the way. Just so we’re all clear on the situation.
Putting the Boycott Behind Him
Jornet’s return to UTMB isn’t purely athletic — there’s a bit of drama to it. After the race partnered with the Ironman Group, Jornet became one of its most prominent critics. He and American trail runner Zach Miller reportedly circulated an email in 2024 urging athletes to boycott the event, citing concerns about its corporate direction.
His position has since thawed. In a recent interview with Agence France-Presse, he said: “Even if I differ on some points, I still have a lot in common with UTMB. It’s a race I’d like to do again.” On Instagram, he went further, describing “long hours” of conversations with race organizers and saying they’re now “aligned on what matters most.”
It reads less like a full surrender and more like two parties who genuinely care about the same thing finally deciding to get on with it.
What He’s Been Up To
While the rest of us were largely not summiting mountains, Jornet spent last autumn climbing all 72 accessible 14,000-foot peaks in the contiguous United States — running or cycling between them — and wrapped the whole thing up in 31 days. If you’re wondering what that looks like as a training block, so is everyone else.
His last UTMB outing, in 2022, saw him become the first person in history to run the 171-kilometre course in under 20 hours, crossing the line in 19:49. American ultrarunner Jim Walmsley has since pushed the course record to 19:37 — meaning that particular benchmark is no longer Jornet’s to defend, just to chase.
August in Chamonix. One record on the line. It’s shaping up to be a very good summer to be a trail running fan.
