2026 Backyard Ultra World Team Championships: France sets its sights on the podium

This Saturday, October 17 at 2 p.m., 72 teams of 15 athletes will take part in the fourth edition of the Backyard Ultra World Championships. The competition follows the format created by Lazarus Lake, the legendary founder of the Barkley Marathons, and the Backyard Ultra concept: an elimination race built around the idea of Last One Standing. Competitors have exactly one hour to complete a 6.7-kilometre loop before setting off again. Any athlete who fails to finish their loop within the allotted hour is eliminated and must stop. The process continues until only one runner remains.

The distinctive feature of these World Team Championships is that each nation races on a course of its choice, on home soil. Only the start is shared by all 72 teams. The combined number of laps completed by each member of a team determines the nation’s result. The nation with the most laps is crowned world champion, although the title is unofficial since no federation currently governs this race format.

Fifteen French athletes were selected based on performances between August 16, 2024 and August 16, 2026. The French team includes winners of Backyard events, who earn automatic selection through a Silver Ticket. That is the case, for example, for Christophe Rouat, winner of the Ultra Tour du Lac de Monteux Backyard Ultra in 2025, and Christophe Dagorette, winner of the Infinity Trail Backyard – Hossegor in 2026. Other selected athletes earned their tickets based on their performances during the selection period.

The 2026 French team will comprise Benjamin Rascalou, Fabrice Puaud, Michaël Pinon, Christophe Dagorette, Maxime Le Meitour, Pierre Aubery, Romain Sophys, Sébastien Despas, Thierry Grajdura, Julien Pierlot, Ronan Pierre, Christophe Rouat, Christophe Baud, Xuane Nguyen, and one woman: Sonia Poutrel, who became the first woman to finish and win the Chartreuse Terminorum in autumn 2025. Nicolas Cointepas, the French record-holder with 105 laps, was forced to withdraw with an injury.

Managed by Maxime Gaudin, the French team will look to continue the steady progress it began at the first edition of these World Championships in 2020, when it chose to race in Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, in the Chartreuse region. France finished fifth that year with 419 laps, despite being able to field only 13 runners instead of the required 15. The line-up included ultra-running figures Christian Mauduit and Claire Bannwarth.

As experience grew and the format gained momentum, the French team strengthened from one edition to the next and made significant progress. Although it finished 10th at the 2022 World Championships in Chantraine, in the Vosges, it amassed 545 laps on that occasion.

France was fifth again in 2024, at the Châtonnay venue in Isère, this time finishing with 950 laps on the scoreboard. It was also there that Nicolas Cointepas set the French individual record.

Can France set a new team record for laps on the Bacqueville-en-Caux racecourse this Saturday? The event also carries an individual incentive: the best French performer on the day will qualify for the individual World Championships in October 2027, to be held at Laz’s backyard in Tennessee.

France will face Belgium, specialists in the event and the defending champions. Led by Merijn Geerts, Ivo Steyaert and Frank Gielen, the Belgian team set a world record in 2024 with 1,147 laps.

Belgium finished ahead of Australia, second with 971 laps, and the United States, third with 969 laps. The US team was led by legendary runners Harvey Lewis and Jon Noll, who both reached 111 laps on that occasion, along with Scott Snell.