F20-34: Alyssa Clark conquers the night, Dacier and Orsini surge from deep

• Alyssa Clark wins in 22:54:24 (15:15/mi), holding 3rd among women from mid-race onward and sealing victory with the fastest women's split on the Barrage de la Girotte→Remontée le Signal E segment.
• Aurore Dacier's charge: starting 21st among women, she climbed to 4th by the finish (23:53:21), also posting the fastest women's split on the Bellevue→Les Houches leg — a relentless second-half surge.
• Blandine Orsini (24:07:54) mirrored that momentum, moving from 18th among women at the first checkpoint to 5th at the finish, with the 2nd-fastest women's split on Barrage de la Girotte→Remontée le Signal E.
• Sarah Nouguier (25:45:16) made the biggest positional climb of the podium group — 30th among women early, 10th by the finish — posting the 3rd-fastest women's split on the Les Houches→Finish leg.

The CCC's most technical race launched at 23:50 from Courmayeur, sending 32 F20-34 finishers into the dark over 145 km and 9,500+ meters of gain. Alyssa Clark, 33, ran a measured, disciplined race — sitting 6th among women through the early checkpoints, then steadily moving up. By the midpoint she was 4th, and she locked into 3rd for the long haul, never flinching. Her decisive move came on the Barrage de la Girotte→Remontée le Signal E segment, where she posted the fastest women's split of anyone in the field — and within F20-34, that translated to a winning margin of nearly 59 minutes over second place.

Aurore Dacier, 31, told a different story entirely. She was 21st among women when the race was young, and she spent the next 23-plus hours hunting places down one by one. Her fastest women's split on the Bellevue→Les Houches leg was the engine of that climb — by Chamonix, she was 4th among women and 2nd in F20-34 at 23:53:21. Blandine Orsini, 28, ran almost the same arc: 18th among women early, 5th at the line in 24:07:54, backed by the 2nd-fastest women's split on that same Girotte→Signal E stretch. The two of them ran 87 minutes apart at the finish but spent the race chasing the same trajectory.

Fourth-place Mahauld Granier, 34, contributed the 3rd-fastest women's split on Remontée le Signal E→Signal S on her way to 25:08:32, while Sarah Nouguier's late flourish — 3rd-fastest on the Les Houches→Finish leg — capped a journey from 30th among women to 10th, and 5th in F20-34 at 25:45:16. Anaïs Duval (26:30:41) rounded out the top six. The humidity sat at 87% throughout, and at elevations pushing toward 8,500 feet, the thin air would have tested anyone not fully acclimatized — which makes the late surges from Dacier, Orsini, and Nouguier all the more striking.