Masters Men at UTMB 2026: Minoggio's Relentless March to the Front

• Cristian Minoggio, 42, wins in 10:21:53 — a 9:16/mi average across 108 km and 6,200+ meters of climbing from Courmayeur to Chamonix.
• Dominant late-race surge: Minoggio entered the men's field at 20th place early, then systematically climbed to 3rd before seizing the lead — and the fastest men's split on the La Fouly→Champex-Lac segment sealed his authority.
• Mengkai Bate (2nd, 11:57:24) and Tuomas Kari (3rd, 12:05:14) rounded out the Masters Men podium, separated by less than eight minutes across a race of nearly 12 hours.
• Robert Jachymiak, 50, goes 10th in 14:10:21; Nicolas Buys, 54, finishes 13th in 14:20:32 — two of the older athletes in the field, both well inside the 28-hour limit.

The story of the Masters Men's race is, above all, the story of Cristian Minoggio hunting. He started the day buried in 20th place among the men, a patient position on a course where the real reckoning comes in the mountains. By the midpoint he had clawed into the top 10; by the closing stages he was 3rd, then 2nd, then — somewhere in the final push — the outright leader. He never relinquished it. His fastest men's split on the La Fouly→Champex-Lac segment was the decisive blow, a move that separated him from anyone who might have followed. His 10:21:53 finish — averaging 9:16 per mile over technical alpine terrain at elevations pushing toward 8,400 feet — is a number that demands respect.

Behind him, Mengkai Bate and Tuomas Kari ran their own composed races. Bate, 40, began in 87th among the men and worked steadily forward all day, posting the 17th-fastest men's split on the Vallorcine Sortie→Finish stretch to close in 11:57:24. Kari, 43, tracked a similar trajectory — 82nd early, grinding to 29th by the finish — with the 23rd-fastest men's split on the Tête de la Tronche→Refuge Bertone segment helping him lock up 3rd in 12:05:14. Neither man faded; both simply ran out of road to catch Minoggio.

Julien Absalon, 46, finished 4th in 12:50:48, and Lucas Hernández Sesma, 44, rounded out the top five in 13:27:46. Further back, the field compressed in the 13:36 to 14:57 range, with seven finishers between 6th and 12th all separated by fewer than 35 minutes — a testament to how evenly matched this Masters Men cohort was across the long haul to Chamonix.