F45-49 at UTMB: Amelkina surges through the women's field to claim the title

• Irina Amelkina won the F45-49 race in 15:27:34 (13:49/mi), climbing from 72nd to 43rd among all women over the course of 108 km.
• Kajsa Holgersson and Leire Martinez separated themselves clearly on the podium — 2nd in 16:33:38 and 3rd in 17:13:56 — while Emiliana Bolontrade (4th, 17:11:54) actually edged Martinez on the clock but was outranked by the narrowest of margins.
• The top-5 window spans just over 2 hours and 43 minutes, from Amelkina's 15:27:34 to Mirjam Miller's 5th-place 18:10:56.
• A field of 57 finishers completed one of ultrarunning's most demanding point-to-point courses — Courmayeur to Chamonix, 6,200 m of climbing, through three countries.

Irina Amelkina ran the kind of race that rewards patience and power. She entered the women's field at 72nd, drifted back briefly to 73rd, then began a relentless climb — 70th, 67th, 55th, 48th — arriving at the finish 43rd among all women. That steady, sustained surge across 108 km of Alpine terrain, capped by the 35th-fastest women's split on the Vallorcine Sortie→Finish stretch, tells the story of a runner who saved something real for the final push. At 13:49/mi across a course that peaks above 8,000 feet, that's a controlled, disciplined effort from start to line.

Kajsa Holgersson ran a similar arc — entering at 102nd among women and working her way to 57th by the finish — and her 45th-fastest women's split on the Les Tseppes→Vallorcine Entrée segment shows she was moving with genuine purpose through the middle of the race. Her 16:33:38 (14:48/mi) puts her more than an hour behind Amelkina, a gap that reflects a real difference in pace rather than a near-miss. Emiliana Bolontrade's 4th-place finish is worth a second look: her 17:11:54 was actually two minutes faster on the clock than 3rd-place Leire Martinez's 17:13:56, but the timing system's finer resolution placed Martinez ahead — a reminder that on a 17-hour race, two minutes can still be a razor's edge. Bolontrade did post the 34th-fastest women's split on Vallorcine Entrée→Vallorcine Sortie, a bright spot in her day.

Mirjam Miller rounded out the top five in 18:10:56, with Ana María Jiménez Gálvez 6th in 18:22:36 and Monica Liliana Sosa 7th in 19:09:43. Beyond that, the field spread wide — Mizue Takahashi and Jo-Anna Lacey crossed within four minutes of each other around the 20-hour mark (10th in 20:12:49 and 11th in 20:16:44), and 20 named finishers made it inside the 24-hour window, with 37 more completing the journey toward UTMB's 28-hour limit. Every one of them finished Courmayeur to Chamonix. That's the number that matters most.