One of trail running’s biggest stars just pulled out of the sport’s most iconic race — and his absence is about to make history.
Tom Evans, the reigning UTMB champion, has confirmed he will not return to Chamonix to defend his title, sending shockwaves through the trail running community just weeks before the race.
His withdrawal means UTMB will enter a 16th consecutive edition without a repeat men’s champion — a streak so persistent it has stopped looking like coincidence.
And with Kilian Jornet back on the start list for the first time since his 2022 victory, this year’s race just got a whole lot more interesting.
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Evans Steps Away From Chamonix
Evans broke the news quietly on Instagram, offering little explanation but plenty of emotion.
It’s never easy watching a race you love from the sidelines, but sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture.
The 34-year-old former British Army captain confirmed he would still travel to Chamonix — just not to race.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
He offered no mention of injury, leaving fans and analysts to connect the dots from an already punishing summer schedule.
A Summer That Took Its Toll
Evans arrived at the Hardrock 100 in Colorado on July 10 as one of the pre-race favorites.
He ran in second place through the opening quarter of the brutal San Juan mountain race — then unraveled completely, dropping out at mile 58.
The collapse was attributed to altitude by iRunFar, a brutal reminder of how unforgiving the sport’s biggest stages can be. UTMB follows just 49 days later.
This isn’t the first time Evans has attempted this kind of compressed schedule. Back in 2023, he won Western States in June and then failed to finish UTMB in September — a pattern that is beginning to look less like bad luck and more like a structural problem with stacking elite mountain races inside a single summer.
The Streak That Won’t Die
Here’s what makes Evans’ withdrawal genuinely historic: the last man to win UTMB in back-to-back years was Kilian Jornet, who did it in 2008 and 2009.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Fifteen editions have been run since — and not one defending champion has managed to repeat.
The names in that losing column are the biggest in the sport. François D’Haene has won UTMB four times. Xavier Thevenard has three titles. Jornet himself went on to win again in 2011 and 2022. None of them ever won it twice in a row.
Evans won last year in a time of 19:18:58, becoming the first British man to claim the title since Jez Bragg in 2010. It’s worth noting the 2024 course was trimmed mid-race on the Italian side due to storm safety concerns, with roughly 1.2 miles and 200 meters of vertical gain removed — meaning Jim Walmsley’s 19:37:43 from 2023 still stands as the official course record.
The Brutal Math of a Triple-Race Summer
Evans isn’t alone in feeling the weight of trail running’s biggest summer calendar.
Jim Walmsley — the 2023 UTMB champion — returned to Chamonix in 2024, led for nearly nine hours, and dropped at Courmayeur. His team later revealed he had been carrying a knee injury from Western States and pushed to start anyway.
Katie Schide, who completed the Western States and UTMB double in 2024 and still holds the women’s course record at 22:09:31, is absent this year too — sidelined with a foot injury. The runners at the very top keep failing to reach the start line.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
The prize money, sponsors, and global audience are concentrated across three races — Western States, Hardrock, and UTMB — packed into a 10-week window. Nobody forces athletes into that sequence. They choose it. But UTMB lands last, and that’s where the damage shows up most brutally.
Courtney Dauwalter is the rare exception who makes it look almost manageable. She won Hardrock on the very weekend Evans dropped out, clocking 26:03:10 to reset her own record — and she’s entered at UTMB just seven weeks later. In 2023, she swept Western States, Hardrock, and UTMB in a single summer. Nobody else has come close to replicating that.
Who Steps Up in Chamonix?
Without Evans, the men’s race reshapes dramatically around two names.
Walmsley leads the entry list with a UTMB Index of 967 — the highest of any entered athlete. Ben Dhiman, who pushed Evans all the way to the finish last year, crossing in 19:51:37, is back and hungry for the top step.
Then there’s the wildcard that has the entire trail world talking: Kilian Jornet.
The Norwegian legend is returning to Chamonix for the first time since his 2022 victory — and he holds the unique distinction of being the only man in the field who has ever actually defended the UTMB title.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
UTMB confirmed that 846 elite runners have entered across its races this year, representing 54 nationalities and 34 more athletes than last year. The field keeps getting deeper. The question is whether anyone can finally end the longest no-repeat streak in the sport — and whether Jornet, of all people, is about to write the most unlikely comeback story in trail running history.
