M45-49 at UTMB Ultra Trail 2026: Frodeno Dominates the 60K to Chamonix

• Jan Frodeno wins in 6:31:57 — a 10:31/mi average across 60 km and 3,500 m of climbing, finishing nearly 25 minutes clear of 2nd place.
• Frodeno's closing surge: he posted the 40th-fastest men's split on the Argentière→Finish leg, climbing from 52nd to 58th in the men's field — and ultimately 65th overall among men — as he locked in the M45-49 title.
• Closest battle of the day: Imanol Urrestizala Arostegi (6th, 7:46:04) and Ivan Redondo Vidal (7th, 7:46:04) finished to the same displayed second — but the timing says Urrestizala Arostegi crossed first.
• 162 finishers completed the M45-49 race within the 14h 30min time limit, with Thomas Kupper (10th, 8:48:01) leading a tightly packed second tier more than an hour behind the podium.

Jan Frodeno arrived in Chamonix in 6:31:57, and the M45-49 race was never really close at the front. His 10:31/mi average — over a course that climbs to a new 2026 high point at 2,321 m between Col de Balme and Col des Posettes — put him in a different conversation from the rest of the field. He spent the early going sitting around 71st among men, drifted back slightly through the middle sections to 80th, then methodically reeled in competitors through the back half. By Argentière he had climbed to 52nd in the men's field, and a 40th-fastest men's split on the closing Argentière→Finish stretch sealed the win.

Guillaume Causse made the biggest sustained move of anyone on the podium. Starting the race around 142nd among men, he ground his way forward across every checkpoint — 139th, 129th, 126th — before a particularly strong Télécabine Vallorcine→Argentière leg (47th-fastest men's split on that segment) catapulted him into the top 100. He finished 2nd in 6:56:52, a 11:11/mi pace. Shunsuke Okunomiya (3rd, 7:05:48) told a similar story of patient forward progress, posting the 50th-fastest men's split on the Argentière→Finish leg to close at 11:25/mi and edge clear of Manel Ochoa Jufré (4th, 7:22:37) by nearly 17 minutes.

Diego Martin (5th, 7:30:13) deserves a mention for the 48th-fastest men's split on the Champex-Lac section — one of the sharpest individual segment performances in the M45-49 field — though it wasn't enough to threaten the podium. Behind him, the finish-line drama belonged to Urrestizala Arostegi and Redondo Vidal, who crossed in 7:46:04 apiece, with timing giving 6th to Urrestizala Arostegi by the narrowest of margins. Nicolas Statti (8th, 7:47:29) and Eder Salas (9th, 7:48:20) completed a tight cluster of four runners within 2:16 of each other — the most compressed racing of the entire M45-49 day.