With the solar set on a spring day within the Italian countryside, the 2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k is completed and dusted, and Courtney Dauwalter (U.S.) and Thomas Cardin (France) are this 12 months’s champions. As one of many ultimate races on this season’s Western States 100 Golden Ticket Races collection, whereby prime finishers earn coveted entries to the June 2026 occasion, the race drew people on the hunt for Golden Tickets in addition to others searching for a spring barnburner. And that is precisely what opponents discovered.
The pre-sunrise begin of the 2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k in Italy. Picture: Chianti Extremely Path/Filippo Orlandi
The 120-kilometer (75 miles) route has over 5,200 meters (17,000 toes) of climbing, making a hilly loop by means of the famed Chianti wine-making area of Italy, beginning and ending within the village of Radda in Chianti. Fields of grapes, centuries-old buildings in rural villages, incessant ups and downs, and a course that’s backloaded with the toughest terrain are markers of this occasion, going down a couple of hours south of Florence.
Prime girls’s contenders forward of the race included the likes of American Rachel Entrekin, coming into this occasion with a profitable streak of one thing round 20 ultras; Norway’s Yngvild Kaspersen, who is maybe finest recognized for her 2023 CCC win and fifth place on the 2024 Western States 100; China’s Lin Chen, with prime finishes together with fourth at each the 2024 UTMB and 2025 Black Canyon 100k; and the shock late entry of American path working G.O.A.T. Dauwalter, pivoting to Chianti following the unlucky climate cancellation of the identical weekend’s Tenerife Bluetrail by UTMB occasion on the Spanish Canary Islands.
The boys’s headliners had been simply French countrymen Vincent Bouillard and Cardin. Bouillard is finest often known as the 2024 UTMB champ who was returning after ending third at this race final 12 months, whereas Cardin’s traditionally been a shorter course specialist who’s transferring to longer distances of late, with a resume that features a win on the 2024 Les Templiers and sixth eventually 12 months’s Zegama Marathon. Italian Andreas Reiterer, this race’s 2024 champ with loads of different accolades, together with a pair of podiums on the 2022 and 2023 Path World Championships Lengthy Path, was one other late entrant from the canceled Tenerife Bluetrail.
Each Reiterer for the lads and Dauwalter for the ladies had been granted official entry by the race group beneath its late-entrance coverage.
As a part of the Western States 100 Golden Ticket Races collection, two Golden Tickets had been up for grabs in every of the ladies’s and males’s races.
Learn on to see how the races performed out.
2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k Ladies’s Race
Norway’s Mari Wetterhus was the shock early tempo setter, passing by means of the primary help station at 12 kilometers with a lead of some seconds on the remainder of the ladies’s discipline. A little bit of an unknown amount, Wetterhus appears to be a national-level Nordic biathlete whose been racing path and ultras for a few years.
Operating simply behind her had been all of the anticipated prime contenders — Norway’s Yngvild Kaspersen, the U.S.’s Rachel Entrekin, China’s Lin Chen, and the U.S.’s Courtney Dauwalter — making up the highest 5. This pattern continued previous Castello di Brolio (38k), the place Wetterhus held her lead, and the subsequent 4 stayed in place, the one change being that the ladies’s prime 5 was now unfold over a few minutes.
Courtney Dauwalter, 2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k girls’s champion. Picture: Chianti Extremely Path/Alessandro Moretti
By Monteluco, 51k, the ladies’s discipline was shaken up, with Kaspersen bringing the group by means of as the brand new chief, Entrekin a few seconds again, and Dauwalter one other few seconds behind in third. Early chief Wetterhus had lapsed again to about 5 minutes off the lead in fourth place. Whereas she continued to maneuver out of podium competition, she finally took sixth place. Additionally round this spot, Chen started to distance herself from the highest runners and at last dropped one other 30k down the path.
With early race antics full, Kaspersen, Entrekin, and Dauwalter had been left to their very own gadgets on the entrance. The trio stayed shut to one another for the 70k of racing that remained. At 59k and with roughly 4:50 elapsed on the race clock, they ran by means of inside 30 seconds of one another, with Kaspersen on the helm. One other couple of hours later, at 74k, the identical factor: Kaspersen and Entrekin passing by means of mainly collectively, with Dauwalter simply behind. At a bit over eight hours of racing and about 33k left to run, it was Kaspersen, Dauwalter, and Entrekin as one-two-three and inside a minute.
The splits on the ultimate checkpoint of Villa San Michele (105k), across the prime of the ultimate main climb, confirmed it may very well be a nailbiter till the top. That mentioned, there was now a little bit of daylight between every runner, as Kaspersen nonetheless led, whereas Entrekin chased about 2.5 minutes behind, and Dauwalter was third, simply over a minute again from second.
Not solely might or not it’s a nail-biter, however it was! Someday in that ultimate 15k, which included an extended downhill and a few extra of this course’s relentless ups and downs, Courtney Dauwalter assumed the result in cross the road as the ladies’s champion in a time of 11:31:55. Longtime race chief Yngvild Kaspersen stopped the clock in second place in 11:33:34, simply over 1.5 minutes again of the winner. And Rachel Entrekin ran throughout the road in third place slightly below 5 extra minutes in arrears, in 11:38:13.
So far as these Western States 100 Golden Tickets go, second-place Kaspersen is a sure on accepting hers, and the second ticket rolled all the way down to fifth-place finisher Lauren Puretz, who eagerly accepted it. Champ Dauwalter, third-place Entrekin, and fourth-place Gemma Hillier Moses kindly declined the ticket provides.
The 2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k girls’s podium (left to proper): 3. Rachel Entrekin, 1. Courtney Dauwalter, 2. Yngvild Kaspersen. Picture: Chianti Extremely Path/Alessandro Moretti
2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k Ladies’s Outcomes
Courtney Dauwalter (U.S.) – 11:31:55
Yngvild Kaspersen (Norway) – 11:33:34
Rachel Entrekin (U.S.) – 11:38:13
Gemma Hillier Moses (U.Okay.) – 12:04:30
Lauren Puretz (U.S.) – 12:25:13
Mari Wetterhus (Norway) – 12:56:32
Eve Moore (U.Okay.) – 13:24:06
Ragna Debats (The Netherlands) – 13:43:45
Manon Gras (France) – 13:49:54
Kristina Hanecakova (Slovakia) – 14:10:54
Full outcomes.
2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k Males’s Race
Not like the ladies’s race, which had a frontrunner off the entrance, the early kilometers of the lads’s race’s had been highlighted by a break group of seven males, which whittled down to 5 by round Castello di Brolio at 38k and included France’s Vincent Bouillard, Andorra’s Samuel Ponce, Italy’s Andreas Reiterer, France’s Thomas Cardin, and Italy’s Tobias Geiser.
On the village of Monteluco (51k), it was now a three-man race for the lead between anticipated prime contenders Cardin, Reiterer, and Bouillard, who got here by means of collectively in simply over 4 hours elapsed on the race clock. Geiser had moved again to fourth place, a few minutes again of the trio, and early co-leader Ponce had slipped to fifth, additionally a few minutes off the lead. Ponce would finally drop, whereas Geiser would preserve that fourth place as far-off because the end line over six hours later.
Thomas Cardin, 2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k males’s champion. Picture: Chianti Extremely Path/Alessandro Moretti
The boys’s podium race thus grew to become a three-way race, and for a little bit of the remaining 70k, the lads stayed pretty shut collectively. At 58k, for instance, they had been inside seconds of one another. However in the midst of the race, issues modified. At 87k, Cardin had shaken free within the lead and constructed a niche of over six minutes. This was a niche he maintained, passing by means of every remaining checkpoint with a six- to eight-minute lead, reportedly trying calm and picked up the entire means. Finally, France’s Thomas Cardin received in 9:58:38, thereby persevering with to show his potential on longer programs, as he has proven in shorter-distance path racing over time.
The race for the remaining podium positions remained dynamic. In any respect the checkpoints within the second half of the race, Reiterer ran by means of in second and Bouillard third, however there was by no means a lot distance between them. Issues had been nonetheless shut after the robust uphill run to the end, the place Italy’s Andreas Reiterer took second in 10:06:16, and France’s Vincent Bouillard completed third in 10:06:52, simply over 30 seconds later, for the second 12 months in a row.
Within the race for the lads’s Western States 100 Golden Tickets, winner Cardin has formally accepted his, whereas second-place Reiterer has declined as a result of him and his spouse being due with their second baby across the June race date. Third-place Bouillard excitedly accepted the ticket.
The 2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k males’s podium (left to proper): 2. Andreas Reiterer, 1. Thomas Cardin, 3. Vincent Bouillard. Picture: Chianti Extremely Path/Marzia Benigna
2026 Chianti Extremely Path by UTMB 120k Males’s Outcomes
Thomas Cardin (France) – 9:58:38
Andreas Reiterer (Italy) – 10:06:16
Vincent Bouillard (France) – 10:06:52
Tobias Geiser (Italy) – 10:21:35
Baptiste Coatantiec (France) – 10:49:17
Jeff Mogavero (U.S.) – 10:55:24
Rémi Gillie (France) – 11:18:49
Charles Van Tiggelen (Belgium) – 11:21:21
Bogdan Ibanescu (Romania) – 11:30:45
Harry Jones (U.Okay.) – 11:34:54
Full outcomes.
