UTMB Extends Doping Controls to All Eight Chamonix Races

Doping control at UTMB Mont-Blanc will cover all eight races in Chamonix this year and every category the anti-doping rules reach, from the elite fields of the three UTMB World Series finals to age-group entrants racing only for a finish.

The number of controls has been doubled for the event’s 23rd edition, UTMB said Thursday. The expansion takes in the three finals (the 60K OCC, the 101K CCC and the 174K UTMB) and the rest of a program that draws about 10,000 runners a year. UTMB said the rules will be adapted for its youngest entrants, and the youth races admit runners born between 2007 and 2012.

The case for testing recreational entrants is partly medical. UTMB publishes 13 guidance sheets for runners on topics including hydration, sleep and the warning signs of heart trouble, and the organizers said an entrant who takes an anti-inflammatory or an opioid without asking a doctor can return a positive test with no intention of gaining an advantage.

Sports organizations that want their anti-doping run at arm’s length hire the International Testing Agency to do it, and the agency has handled UTMB’s program since January 2024. Its brief goes well beyond race day: out-of-competition testing, biological passports and results management all sit with the ITA. Under the policy UTMB published in November, podium finishers are tested at every event on the World Series circuit, with random testing on top.

The announcement gives no figure for how many controls Chamonix has run in past years, and UTMB has not published one, leaving the doubling without a stated baseline. The only absolute numbers the group has released are circuit-wide, and were plans rather than results: in May 2024 it said around 100 tests were planned across the whole World Series that year, funded from a minimum of €100,000 (about $117,000), which it called an increase of nearly 43 percent.

“Rewarding properly, protecting everyone’s health, testing without exception: we impose all three on ourselves for the world’s best athletes as well as for those aiming for the cutoff time,” said Fabrice Perrin, UTMB Group’s chief sports, community and CSR officer.

The last doping sanction to strip one of these three races of its winner came from someone else’s program. Joyline Chepngeno of Kenya was tested in competition by the Athletics Integrity Unit, the anti-doping body for world athletics, after winning Sierre-Zinal on Aug. 9, 2025. Sierre-Zinal belongs to the rival Golden Trail World Series. Chepngeno won the OCC 19 days later, on Aug. 28. The sanction followed in September. She admitted the violation, said she had not known a knee injection the previous month contained a banned substance, and accepted a two-year ban from Sept. 8, 2025. Her results were voided back to Aug. 9, and the OCC title passed to Miao Yao of China.

Prize money at the three finals comes to €271,000 (about $316,000): €119,000 (about $139,000) at the UTMB and €76,000 (about $89,000) at each of the CCC and OCC. Ten places are paid in each race, equally for men and women, and the UTMB winners take €20,000 (about $23,000) each. Those are the same figures UTMB announced for its three finals in 2024.

Racing opens Aug. 24 with the 300K PTL, the 145K TDS and the 40K MCC. The OCC is run Aug. 27, and the CCC and UTMB both start Aug. 28.