New Zealand superstar runners Dan Jones and Caitlin Fielder powered to victories in the UTA50 on their first visits to the HOKA Ultra-Trail Australia by UTMB in the New South Wales Blue Mountains.
Jones crossed the line in 4:01:19 to win the men’s race while Fielder covered the 50km course in 5:02:27 to take the tape in the women’s event.
It was the perfect warm up for Western States for Jones as he’ll be among the favourites for America’s most prestigious trail race.
Western States next for Jones
Jones stood on the top step of the podium on his UTA debut, leading home Spain’s Miguel Benitez by more than 10 minutes with another Kiwi Sam Rout third.
“It’s a hard race, it’s my first time here over in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, but it was awesome, such a beautiful day, a little muddy but absolutely beautiful views and I actually got to appreciate them today rather than being in the fog like the last couple of days,” said Jones.
“As for the race itself it’s hard, I mean the stairs, I didn’t expect so many between 10 and 20 ks, the ups, the downs, you’ve just got to take it as it comes but make sure that you’ve got something in the tank for the final 25k of the race and I think I did that I monitored my energy levels pretty well and was able to finish really strong.”
The top two ran together for the first half of the race before Jones put a gap on Benitez and didn’t look back.
“We were running together for the first 20ks and I might have only opened up about 15 seconds and then about a minute by the third aid station and then I pulled away a little bit from there but that was then just about running my own race because I didn’t know how far he was behind but it was a really good race by him as well, it was great racing between us,” he said.
Jones is preparing to take on some of the best trail runners in the world at Western States at the end of June.
“I’m right in the depths of a big build now so I didn’t taper off too much, it looked like a pretty big week as well with this 50km tucked in at the end of it.
“I’ll be heading to San Francisco on Monday, to Auburn and will get some heat training in, some altitude, and then head across to Olympic Valley in mid-June,” he said.
“There’s a lot on but I’m excited for it, feeling strong, putting in a solid performance today is a good boost, you can’t weigh too much on one race because it’s all in the cycle of something big but you’ve got to be happy with it.”
Late scare for Fielder
The women’s race was a tighter affair, with Fielder finishing four minutes ahead of fellow Kiwi Alison Wilson, with Demi Caldwell of Australia just behind to round out the podium.
“I’m pretty happy to be done but thrilled to have won the race, it was pretty tough to be honest but I’m super happy,” said Fielder.
“It started off pretty quick with everyone along the way and then I just tried to run my own race but I heard that Alison was closing in pretty hard in the end there which made me pretty panicky, I had a few moments along the way, I dropped my sunglasses in the waterfall, stopped and looked for them but they had shot off, it was cool out there though.”
Fielder enjoyed her first trip to UTA, including mixing it up with UTAMiler runners who were in the final stages of their 100-mile event.
“I was having a pretty good time up until the last 10k and then I felt like I chucked it and reversed a little bit. But honestly, it was really cool with all the Milers out there, just getting some encouragement from them and just also seeing how well they were going. It was just super motivating,” she added.
Miler joy for Concé and Coffey
And in that 100-miler, Eric Concé and Meghann Coffey created history by winning the first ever UTAMiler race.
Almost 400 runners took on the challenge, with 2025 being the first running of the long-distance event as UTA made its debut as a UTMB World Series Major.
Sydney-based Frenchman Concé won the men’s title in 18:55:24, with Coffey, from Northern New South Wales, crossing the line to claim the women’s race in 21:52:24.
