Ludovic Pommeret Wins A Third Straight Hardrock 100, And Smashes His Own Record

Eleven days before his 51st birthday, the Frenchman ran 21:11:36 in Colorado, more than 20 minutes faster than his own course record, as pre-race favorite Tom Evans dropped out with altitude sickness.

Published: Jul 11, 2026 12:59 pm

Jessy Carveth

Jessy Carveth

Jessy is our Senior News Editor, pro cyclist and former track and field athlete with a Bachelors degree in Kinesiology.

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Ludovic Pommeret does not appear to be aging like the rest of us. Eleven days before his 51st birthday, the Frenchman won the Hardrock 100 for the third year running on Saturday in Silverton, Colorado, and knocked more than 20 minutes off his own course record while he was at it, L’Équipe reported.

His time of 21 hours, 11 minutes, and 36 seconds over the 100-mile route’s roughly 10,000 meters of climbing beat the 21:33:06 clockwise record he set in 2024. Per tradition, Pommeret kissed the painted rock at the finish, then briefly collapsed from exhaustion before coming to on a chair at 3:11 a.m.

Ludovic Pommeret Wins A Third Straight Hardrock 100, And Smashes His Own Record 1

The Favorite Couldn’t Handle The Altitude

Pommeret led for most of the day, and his biggest threat never materialized. Tom Evans, the Briton who won Western States in 2023 and the 2025 UTMB, was hunted down by altitude sickness and pulled out around the 90km mark, his crew having to retrieve him between aid stations. By Ouray, near 70km, Pommeret already led Evans by half an hour.

That gap is the whole story of Hardrock. The race sits at an average altitude of 3,400 meters, high enough that even elite flatland fitness counts for little, and it rewards exactly the kind of mountain craft Pommeret has spent a decade accumulating.

Ludovic Pommeret Wins A Third Straight Hardrock 100, And Smashes His Own Record 2

The Late Bloomer Who Won’t Stop

Here’s what makes Pommeret such an outlier: he came to trail running late, after years as a snowboarder, and he keeps getting better in a sport that is supposed to belong to runners in their 30s. His resume already included the 2016 UTMB and the 2021 Diagonale des Fous, and he has now won three consecutive Hardrocks, lowering the record each time he runs the course clockwise. At an age when most ultrarunners are long retired from the sharp end, he is running his fastest.

Hardrock is the second of ultrarunning’s four majors this season, following Western States and preceding UTMB and the Diagonale des Fous. Pommeret, remarkably, keeps writing new chapters in it a full decade after his first major win.

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