Statistics From the Inaugural World Path Majors Circuit – iRunFar

In November of 2023, a group of race administrators from world-class path races introduced the creation of a brand new path racing circuit: the World Path Majors. As of December 2024, the inaugural season for the sequence has concluded. We’ll use this month’s column to familiarize ourselves with the sequence’ origin and targets and its inaugural 12 months participation and competitiveness.

The announcement of the World Path Majors (WTM) within the fall of 2023 got here following the conclusion of the primary 12 months of the UTMB World Sequence. The UTMB World Sequence purchased or launched path races all over the world. These path races held privileged positions within the qualifier system for getting into UTMB, CCC, and OCC. Because the UTMB World Sequence navigated rising pains, path runners obtained a really feel for the brand new administration of beloved races and new lottery processes.

A gaggle of race administrators acknowledged that loads of runners wished to take part in races that remained impartial, aggressive, bucket-list occasions on attractive trails. They created the WTM to manifest this feature. The races acknowledge current world-class occasions and encourage their respective race administration groups to maintain doing what they do, thereby sustaining their loyal followings and attracting new contributors.

By evaluating the races to the wildly in style World Marathon Majors road-marathon race assortment, the race administrators aspired towards a mannequin wherein path runners try to finish sequence races all through a lifetime, as a substitute of feeling pressured to make a number of lengthy journeys per season.

Ten races made up the sequence for its inaugural season:

The 2024 season seems to offer proof of idea. All races within the WTM boasted robust attendance and aggressive fields. Elite athletes confirmed up, usually to a number of sequence races. Let’s dive into the numbers.

Participation in 2024 World Path Majors Races

Each WTM occasion attracted excessive ranges of participation and powerful worldwide contingents. Based on Worldwide Path Working Affiliation (ITRA) outcomes, which incorporates runners who didn’t end however excludes any who didn’t begin (DNS), the ten WTM races in 2024 had 7,901 outcomes (1).

The sequence included some massive occasions in 2024, such because the Mt. Fuji 100 Mile with 2,144 contributors, and the Hong Kong 100k with 1,755 contributors, respectively. However some occasions had been extra intimate. The South Downs Method 100 Mile had simply 36 contributors, in response to ITRA outcomes, whereas discipline caps and DNSs stored contributors on the WTM occasion on the Québec Mega Path to 176. The Swiss Canyon Path exhibited essentially the most development in 2024, attracting 47% extra contributors than the earlier 12 months.

A number of WTM races boasted larger worldwide participation than the earlier 12 months, too. The worldwide contingent elevated by 17% on the Hong Kong 100k in 2024 in comparison with the earlier 12 months, and by 11% on the Québec Mega Path. Solely Transgrancanaria noticed a lower in worldwide participation charges in 2024, and solely by 2%.

World Path Majors Competitiveness

Did the WTM achieve attracting elite athletes? Properly, Courtney Dauwalter raced in and received two WTM occasions — Transgrancanaria and the Mt. Fuji 100 Mile. Her race performances had been spectacular in true Dauwalter style, and so they mirror positively on the WTM sequence. However Dauwalter was certainly not the one elite athlete competing in these occasions, so I’ll elaborate.

The ITRA Efficiency Index classifies elite athletes as males with an ITRA rating of 825 or higher, and ladies with a rating of 700 or higher — try a earlier article for extra context on ITRA scores and different rating programs. By that commonplace, ITRA counted at the very least 43 performances by males and 24 by girls as assembly an elite commonplace.

The entire variety of elite athletes who participated was considerably increased. For instance, Richard Lockwood’s finest efficiency at a WTM race in 2024, in response to the ITRA rating algorithm, was value a rating of 796 for his top-10 end on the Madeira Island Extremely-Path, however Lockwood’s total ITRA Efficiency Index is 859.

One other level of comparability is the primary 12 months of the UTMB World Sequence, which launched in 2022. The marquee UTMB race in Chamonix attracted 84 entrants who had been categorised as elite, in response to the ITRA Efficiency Index. The CCC race was equally aggressive, with 74 elite entrants. Nevertheless, most of the different UTMB World Sequence occasions had far fewer — at the very least 14 occasions had between 5 and 10 elite entrants.

Amongst runners on the leaderboard, 14 girls raced in two or extra WTM occasions in 2024, as did eight males. For context, when we seemed on the Golden Path World Sequence, there have been at the very least 88 athletes (women and men mixed) who raced in at the very least three of the seven races in 2022, which was the minimal variety of races to qualify for the ultimate. These had been shorter-distance races, and it was the fourth season of the Golden Path World Sequence. The WTM has but to achieve that degree of sequence participation, nor was it meant to with its longer races and solely two races wanted to compete within the sequence.

We are able to discover additional indicators that WTM races attracted top-level expertise among the many Freetrail nominees for 2024 Path Efficiency of the Yr, which included at the very least two from WTM races:

The nominees for 2024 Freetrail Path Runner of the Yr included Miguel Arsénio, Guang-Fu Meng, Guo-Min Deng, Rachel Drake, Marianne Hogan, and Jazmine Lowther — to call only a few examples of elite athletes who had been acknowledged for performing nicely at WTM races.

Anne Champagne received two WTM races in 2024, a declare she shares with Courtney Dauwalter. When requested to explain what attracted her to the WTM in 2024, Champagne stated:

“I began planning my season across the Québec Mega Path. I simply got here again from a troublesome couple years the place racing wasn’t going nicely and I wanted to seek out the suitable the reason why I used to be doing these races. Seeing how that race went with a course document, a primary place, and the way in which I raced having enjoyable the entire time, I began fascinated about the following alternatives within the WTM circuit.

“The Grand Raid des Pyrénées seemed like the very best alternative to specific myself and it didn’t harm that it seemed like an superior occasion, even when it was solely six weeks after the Québec Mega Path, so I simply went for it. The WTM values, reminiscent of range and respect for the native atmosphere and traditions, actually resonated. They bring about one thing new within the ultra-trail working neighborhood that’s distinctive and offers the chance for each runner to attain huge targets, from finishing a race to competing in opposition to among the finest on the planet.”

Trying to 2025 and Past

When the WTM was introduced in November 2023, among the collaborating races had already opened their registration and, in some instances, had been already bought out for the circuit’s inaugural 12 months. Meaning we have now but to see the complete affect of the sequence on attracting new contributors. It’s additionally difficult to measure the impact of the sequence on media protection, which can choose up additional within the years to return. Contemplating the WTM emphasizes the independence and uniqueness of its occasions, the sequence will regularly be a “cherry on high” of every already top-notch race.

Wanting on the entrants’ lists for the earliest sequence races of the 2025 season, there’s already proof of robust competitors and international attraction. If the WTM is profitable in 2025, that momentum is prone to make WTM races much more in style and aggressive, significantly if skilled athlete contracts embody incentives to compete at and carry out nicely within the annual sequence.

The affiliation is already rolling out bulletins for 2025 — the Grampians Peaks Path 100 Mile in Australia and Vietnam Mountain Marathon in Vietnam will probably be a part of the worldwide sequence. Let’s see if the sequence provides any extra occasions for 2025.

Additionally new for 2025, the WTM will embody a Group’s League. Athletes affiliated with the identical model or workforce can contribute to a podium end on the workforce degree — in every occasion or for the season as a complete.

This will probably be much like the workforce part of world championships. For instance, Jumpei Yamaguchi and Floriane Sizzling received the particular person championships on the 2024 IAU 100k World Championships, and Japan and France received within the males’s and ladies’s workforce classes, respectively.

For the WTM, the Group’s League needs to be attention-grabbing to comply with as a result of it can inspire elite athletes having a troublesome day to grind out a end, if they’ll end inside the high 100 to attain factors for his or her workforce. It might additionally encourage manufacturers to help their athletes’ participation in WTM races due to the added visibility it can give the model.

Name for Feedback

• Have you ever participated in any occasions within the World Path Majors? Are there any in your checklist?
• Has the creation of the World Path Majors made you extra conscious of or inquisitive about any of those races?
• Who amongst our readers is striving to finally run every occasion?
• Any predictions for 2025?

Notes/References

1. As a result of the races are impartial, it’s difficult to calculate the exact variety of runners collaborating in multiple World Path Majors race. After I eliminated duplicates from the names of 2024 contributors in my dataset, I had a closing results of 7,706 distinctive entrant names. However, these races don’t use a unified registration system, so it’s potential {that a} runner’s title appeared barely in a different way throughout a number of ITRA outcomes. This occurred to Sange Sherpa, for instance.