UTMB, Kilian Jornet and trail running representatives ‘hopeful’ after discussing future of World Series
- The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc and top trail runners discussed how to balance the sport’s development ‘with its values at the centre’
- The meeting follows a leaked email as Jornet and Zach Miller sought to pressure the UTMB
Representatives of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) group, champion runners Kilian Jornet and Zach Miller, and other elite runner representatives had a virtual meeting to exchange concerns about the future of the sport.
“As an introduction, Zach Miller and Kilian Jornet expressed, in their name as well as in the name of certain elite athletes, their concerns and questions regarding the direction taken by UTMB Group over the last two years through the development of the UTMB World Series, which was launched in 2022,” a UTMB statement read.
The meeting comes in the wake a leaked email that showed Spaniard Jornet and American Miller rallying other elite runners to compete in a different race to mount pressure on the UTMB.
The email said: “An absence of the top fifteen ranked male and female runners from the UTMB start line would speak volumes. It would communicate to them that we are not happy and pressure them to make some changes.”
Jornet and Miller’s wrote: “There are a multitude of things that we could point to that are concerning to us, but the gist of it is that we feel that they are not managing themselves and their event(s) in a way that has the best interest of the sport and its people in mind.”
