M40-44 at UTMB Ultra Trail: Garcia Membrive Charges Through the Field to Take the Crown

• Israel Garcia Membrive won M40-44 in 6:33:49 (10:34/mi), finishing 14 minutes clear of runner-up Nicolas Abbal.
• The top-4 all broke 6:53 — then a gap of over 11 minutes to 5th place Thomas Gramoullé.
• Ezequiel Pauluzak posted the 4th-fastest La Giète→Trient split among the men to hold 4th overall in M40-44; Nicolas Abbal ran that same segment even faster — the 54th-fastest men's split there — yet Pauluzak's earlier position kept him in the hunt.
• Thomas Gramoullé staged the most dramatic climb through the field: from 133rd among men at Col de Balme all the way to 87th at the finish, earning 5th in M40-44 with a 7:04:34.

Israel Garcia Membrive's victory was built on relentless, methodical forward momentum. He started the 60 km Orsières-to-Chamonix course sitting 132nd among the men and spent every checkpoint moving forward — 129th, 115th, 104th, 82nd, 75th, 62nd, and finally 55th at the finish line. That's a climb of 77 places through the men's field across a course featuring 3,500 meters of climbing, thin-ish air above 7,500 feet at its highest, and 82% humidity that made every descent feel earned. His 10:34/mi average over this terrain tells its own story. He also posted the 38th-fastest men's split on the Argentière→Finish stretch, sealing the win with authority.

Behind him, Nicolas Abbal (6:47:49) and Chun Kit Tsang (6:50:48) ran their own composed races to claim 2nd and 3rd. Abbal moved steadily through the men's field — from 139th down to 68th — while Tsang tracked a nearly parallel trajectory. The two finished just three minutes apart, with Abbal holding 2nd by that margin. Pauluzak, 4th in 6:52:59, was the most dangerous threat on the La Giète→Trient segment — his split there ranked among the fastest in the entire men's field — but he couldn't quite close the gap to the podium.

The rest of the top ten was tightly contested from 6th through 10th, with Donatello Rota (7:15:59), Enric Gomez (7:18:18), Andreas Rois (7:19:14), Asier del Pozo Pérez (7:21:25), and Marcos Longares Araque (7:25:38) all finishing within ten minutes of each other. Among 158 finishers in M40-44, the depth was real — but Garcia Membrive's wire-to-wire surge through the men's field made him the clear story of the day.