Utmb

[Fellmincer]

So Iain R and Fellmincer, I'm interested in this, what actually occurred? It sounds like you both ran the reduced course? Was it a controversial decision to call off the offical start?

Anyway, hats off to the both of you.

I started the utmb along with 2300 others at 1830 friday night. At about 16 miles in we heard from runners around us that the race had been pulled due to an avalanche at Col de la Seigne. We carried on to Les Contamines, the next check point to be marked as "safe". There had and never was an avalanche/rockfall/landslide at Col de la Seigne. It was all about the weather conditions over the cols.
You will also read about some route markers that were apparently stolen from the col du Bonhomme. This never occured. The group responsible for flagging the route struggled to reach and mark a difficult traverse on the course due to serious weather conditions. The security party responsible for checking the markings were in place saw this section was unmarked (at 10pm friday) and could not see the flagging party. Messages then relayed by radio were picked up by third parties and misinterpreted. The cancellation of the utmb was due to weather, but looking at the time line, when the radio messages were picked up at around 10-1030pm friday, it was the exact time the race was cancelled. The organisers had no choice. Kilian Jornet has written a piece on his blog in French. He does state that entrants in the UTMB are generally trail runners and don't neccessarily have the skills for mountain travel. The entry points system he states is lacking in this respect. The organisers know this and cancelled, i think rightly.

This cancellation then affected the start of another race, the TDS. As the coaches that were needed to take the runners to start line of the TDS in Italy were needed to get 2000 plus UTMB runners back to Chamonix. The organisers rightly or wrongly decided to put on a shorter race starting in Courmayeur for all the UTMB and TDS runners. Text messages were sent at 0126 saturday morning to everyone involved, stating the start would be at 10am. Many received this too late or not at all. Then at 0300am saturday morning the organisers had to pull another race the CCC due to weather. So coaches that were meant to take all the UTMB lot to Italy at 0630 had to then recover 1000 plus runners from Vallorcine and Trient. So another text was sent by the organisers at 0430 saying that spaces to the start line of the new race were limited to 1000.

There were no heroics as stated by other posters on this thread. You were either on the bus to Courmayeur or you weren't. You either got the texts or you didn't.

Michel Poletti (race organiser) states on the UTMB forum that from the insurance aspect it would have been better to cancel the race before the start. But they didn't, they allowed it to continue as far as Les Contamines. The conditions which are no longer available to view on the website did state that in the case of the race being abandoned no refund will be given if the front runners reach... Wait for it... Les Contamines! Looking back at it and now with a clearer head i think they did the right thing to let it go as far as Les Contamines in the hope that the weather report would change.

I didn't do the replacement race in the end.