UTMB 2024 men’s results: Vincent Bouillard causes MASSIVE shock despite late scare

Vincent Bouillard of France caused a huge surprise when he won trail running’s showpiece event, the Ultra Trail du Mont-Blanc.

He had taken the lead before the midway point in the 176km race when reigning men’s champion Jim Walmsley exited the event because of a knee issue.

And from then on he never looked back as he moved further and further clear of his rivals. He crossed the line in 19:54:23, just the fifth person to go under the 20-hour mark and with an advantage of just under half an hour on the rest.

Fellow Frenchman Baptiste Chassagne was second, with Ecuador’s Joaquin Lopez rounding out the podium in third.

Bouillard has some top results to his name, with wins in the 100-mile Kodiak Ultra Marathons by UTMB and the Gorge Waterfalls 100K, which were both last year and in the United States.

But an indication that he wasn’t among the favourites came with the fact he was the only person in the upper reaches of the standings who didn’t have a photo on the official race website – and he wore bib number 139, with the highest-ranked runners in single figures.

Remarkably he works full-time as a senior manager in product engineering / innovation for the race’s headline sponsors HOKA.

Arguably his biggest scare came in the closing stages when there was a mandatory kit check at the final aid station of La Flégère and it took a little while for him to locate his second water vessel. Failure to do so could have seen him prevented from continuing.

How the race panned out

The high temperates contributed to a seriously attritional race on the men’s side, with particular carnage overnight.

Defending champ Walmsley was the highest-profile casualty, while another former winner in Pau Capell plus 2022 runner up Mathieu Blanchard and third-placed Tom Evans were others to exit in the early hours of Saturday morning following the start at 6pm local time on Friday.

Bouillard paced his effort to perfection – he was ninth at La Balme after 40km and gradually worked his way up towards the sharp end.

So much so that when Walmsley dropped out, he eased to the front and that was a position he would never relinquish.

And no one else was able to throw down a challenge so by the time he reached the top of the final climb to La Flégère he had more than half an hour in hand.

Mandatory kit check drama

With the hot weather kit having been activated for the week, there was to be a mandatory kit check for everyone there – with Bouillard obviously the first to find that out!

There were worrying moments as his second water carrier – capacity for two litres is required – was proving elusive to find in his pack but it finally appeared and he was on his way towards the celebrations in Chamonix.

He had plenty of time to soak in the victory too, with Chassagne crossing the line 28 minutes later to make it a French one-two.

Not long after there was more history in the making as Katie Schide set the fastest ever time by a woman to win the race for a second time.

UTMB 2024 results – Elite Men

Friday 30 August – Saturday 31 August 2024, 176km

1. Vincent Bouillard (FRA) – 19:54:23
2. Baptiste Chassagne (FRA) – 20:22:45
3. Joaquin Lopez (ECU) – 20:26:26
4. Hannes Namberger (GER) – 20:31:54
5. Ludovic Pommeret (FRA) – 20:58:18