Tom Evans‘ bid to win the Ultra Trail du Mont-Blanc for the first time came to an untimely end in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The Brit, winner of Western States last year and third at UTMB in 2022, has targeted trail running’s biggest event this year.
He had bounced back superbly after a terrifying ordeal late last year when he was mugged at knife point on trails near Cape Town.
That came after a scary exit from UTMB when he admitted “the wheels massively, massively came off” as he left the race on a stretcher.
Podium position
Twelve months on and everything looked on track in the first half of the 176km race that features nearly 10,000 metres of climbing.
He was third pretty much all the way to the Courmayeur checkpoint after 83km, which was the point where defending champion Jim Walmsley retired owing to a knee issue.
Evans in contrast was reported on his Instagram page to be “in and out of Courmayeur in good spirits. Sat in third, top three all together.”
But alarm bells started to ring as he dropped out of the top three and down to fifth by Arnouvaz after 101km.
And by the time of Grand Col Ferret just a few kilometres later he had bowed out of the race and was clearly struggling.
‘You can’t run this race on empty’
Another post on Instagram confirmed the exit but thankfully, unlike last year, he wasn’t requiring urgent medical attention.
It read: “Tom has sadly had to withdraw. He is okay and with family and friends.
“Fuelling became an issue through the night and you can’t run this race on empty. Thank you for all the support.”
This year’s UTMB, especially on the men’s side, has seen a whole host of high-profile contenders drop out in the hot conditions.
As well as Walmsley and Evans, former winner Pau Capell and 2022 runner up Mathieu Blanchard also failed to finish.
