exhiker wrote:
Wonder why irunfar doesn't list Pau Capell as a top contender and instead list under 'more fast men' even though he has won the race before? Maybe no good recent performances?
Anyway, I think Jim takes again this year and will likely lower the CR even more. I was hoping we'd get to finally see the showdown that never was between Francois, Kilian and Jim. We may never see that line up again.
Yeah it's a good question about Pau, but my recollection is he more or less "trained himself into the ground" in 2019 (when he won) and 2020 (when it was canceled so he tried to FKT it under 20 hours with the help of pacer friends), resulting in a significant injury requiring surgery that he really hasn't fully recovered from. I vaguely recall him pacing along with Zach during the first half of '22 (or '23?) as they had the same sponsor/kits and it was sometimes difficult to tell them apart from the aerial coverage since they're also built almost exactly the same, but I digress. In the end it seems the sun may have set on his UTMB glory days as it may have with Francois, Xavier, and perhaps even Kilian. We'll see.
Regarding Jim and the record I would have guessed he was going to take another chunk out of it again this year, but I just read the course has been altered yet again to 176KM (109.3M) vs 170KM (105ish) last year, so it seems less likely. While both Blanchard (2nd in '22) and Grangier (2nd/'23) are back, they don't seem like guys who can challenge Jim on a "Jim day", but can certainly challenge if he has struggles. The only guy who seems like he could challenge Jim on a Jim day would be Tom Evans on a Tom day, but even then it seems a stretch. It would be exciting to see though.
