M60-64 at UTMB 2026: Osanz Lafita Leads a Field of 60-Something Mountaineers Into Chamonix

• Francisco Osanz Lafita, 60, took the M60-64 title in 18:00:00 (16:06/mi), posting the 100th-fastest men's split on the Vallorcine Entrée→Vallorcine Sortie segment in the closing stretch.
• Markus Wolperdinger, 63, was the division's biggest mover — climbing from deep in the men's field to finish 2nd in 18:17:14, a gap of just 17 minutes 14 seconds behind the winner across 108 km.
• Places 3 and 4 were separated by a mere 89 seconds: Piero Longhini (3rd, 20:57:06) and Philippe Salvayre (4th, 20:58:35), both arriving after nearly 21 hours on course.
• All 31 finishers in M60-64 completed one of ultrarunning's most demanding point-to-point courses — 108 km from Courmayeur to Chamonix, with over 6,200 meters of climbing — within the 28-hour limit.

Francisco Osanz Lafita, 60, ran a composed race from Courmayeur to Chamonix, and the split data hints at how he held it together. His gender place drifted from 273rd through 347th at mid-race — the 6,200-plus meters of cumulative climbing and the thin air above 8,000 feet taking their toll on the whole field — before he reeled off a strong final push, recovering to 276th among men by the finish. That closing Vallorcine segment, where he posted the 100th-fastest men's split in the race, was the punctuation mark on a well-managed effort at 16:06 per mile.

Markus Wolperdinger, 63, told a different story entirely. He started conservatively — 492nd among men — and spent the entire race climbing through the field, reaching as high as 283rd before a slight fade to 291st at the line. His 18:17:14 (16:21/mi) was good for 2nd in M60-64, and his Trient→Les Tseppes split — 225th-fastest among men on that leg — shows where he found his rhythm in the mountains. He ran a catch-up race from start to finish, and it nearly worked all the way to the top step.

The battle for 3rd was settled by the thinnest of margins. Piero Longhini, 64, and Philippe Salvayre, 61, both ran through the night and into the following day at near-identical finishing times — 20:57:06 and 20:58:35 respectively — but Longhini held 3rd by 89 seconds after 21 hours of racing. Salvayre's story is arguably the more dramatic: he began the race 983rd among men and clawed his way to 492nd at the finish, posting the 275th-fastest men's split on the Les Tseppes→Vallorcine Entrée leg. He ran a relentless forward march across the entire course and just ran out of road to catch Longhini. Ole Bjørn Kittang rounded out the top five in 21:20:28, while Alain Perrot (6th, 22:10:05), Chun Qian (7th, 22:46:22), and the rest of the field stretched the finishers all the way to Rupert Williams in 20th at 26:16:18 — every one of them earning their place in Chamonix.