UTMB 2026: Marie Nivet and Taylor Stack take the ETC

At 2 p.m., under bright sunshine, Courmayeur welcomed the 2026 edition of the ETC. Added to the UTMB Mont-Blanc calendar in 2022, it asks for a very different skill set than the other races on the week’s program, which lean more toward endurance and resilience.

Here, over 15 km of up-and-down (2,100 m of climb and almost as much descent), the pace is a different story, and so is the effort: for the front runners, it’s close to full gas almost from start to finish.

This year’s course featured a more gradual climb up to the balconies of the Aosta Valley, with Mont Blanc straight ahead, before dropping back down toward Courmayeur. Six start waves were used to avoid bottlenecks on the singletrack and let the fastest race head-to-head.

Regulars from the Golden Trail Series and the Mountain Running World Cup quickly found themselves trading blows.

In the women’s race, one of the cornerstones of the French mountain running team, Marie Nivet (Nike ACG), took the win. On this high, airy course, the 28-year-old, featherweight profile of the sport-physiology PhD candidate proved decisive. After finishing seventh here in 2025, the French runner backed up her European team silver from last June by beating Switzerland’s Axelle Genoud, 21, a member of Salomon’s Next Gen team. Italy’s experienced Vivien Bonzi (Brooks), 25, rounded out the podium.

In the men’s race, the win went to American Taylor Stack (Brooks), more often seen on longer formats. Third this year at Zegama over 43 km, winner of the Desert Rats by UTMB 48 km earlier in the season, and 13th at Sierre Zinal, it’s a bit of a surprise to see him take the top step on a much shorter, sharper course.

He beat true specialists of the format, led by France’s Romain Dicher (Asics), runner-up here after winning the Mont Blanc Vertical Kilometer 2026 and finishing 12th at the most recent European Mountain Running Championships on the Classic up-and-down course.

The men’s podium was completed by the reigning European mountain running champion, Spain’s Jan Torrella, 22, who had to concede to stronger legs today.