It has been eleven years since the skinny Catalan, 34 years old on the clock, had not won the queen of mountain running races, 171 km long and 10,000 meters high in elevation gain.
He had also run it in 2018 but had been forced to retire following a wasp sting, to which he is allergic.
Jornet already had two victories to his credit this year in Zegama (Spain) at the end of May then in the Hardrock 100 (100 miles, around 160 kilometres) in which he beat his great French rival François d’Haene and set an absolute record in the ’test.
The previous record time on the UTMB was set by his compatriot Pau Capell in 2019 and stood at 8:19 p.m.
Jornet is about five minutes ahead of Frenchman Mathieu Blanchard, on whom he managed to dig away over the last twenty kilometers.
The native of the South of France, aged 35, was ranked third last year on the event. The engineer by training has also been a celebrity on social networks since his participation in the reality show Koh-Lanta in 2019.
Jornet also left no chance to his American rival Jim Walmsley, who appeared in difficulty early in the morning on Saturday. As for third place on the podium, it could go to Briton Tom Evans.
After his first victories in Chamonix in 2008, 2009 and 2011, Jornet thus fulfilled his bet of equaling the quadruple record of Frenchman François d’Haene, absent this year on the UTMB.
– Suspense over his participation –
However, the game did not appear to be won in advance for Jornet since his participation in the race had been questioned for a time this week following a positive test for Covid-19. After two days of suspense, it had not been confirmed until Friday noon, just a few hours before the start.
“I feel fine, I don’t feel any symptoms (…), so the doctors gave me the green light to start the race,” he said in a video.
On the other hand, he had not succeeded in winning during the famous race in Sierre-Zinal (Switzerland) in mid-August, of which he was the big favourite.
Among the women, where the race seemed much more open in the absence of the American Courtney Dauwalter who won last year, it is her compatriot Katie Schide who should win after taking the ascendancy in course course on Canadian Marianne Hogan. The Maine native, who has long preferred team sports to trail running, placed eighth in the 2021 edition.
The arrival of the runners in Chamonix, which took place under a brilliant sun, comes to end a week of trails of different formats organized at the foot of the peaks of the giant massif of the Alps under the aegis of the UTMB Mont-Blanc.
The event was bereaved overnight from Monday to Tuesday by the fatal fall of a Brazilian trail runner near the Refuge de Plan Glacier.
Last year, a Czech competitor also perished in a fall of several tens of meters. These are the first two fatal accidents since the first edition of the UTMB in 2003.
ahe/agt
