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Trail Running 2026, where are we, where are we going.

Kilian Jornet

First of all I want to express that those are just some opinions and thoughts I had when thinking on what’s going on with trailrunning at that time. I therefore have biases, first as an elite athlete I would have tendency to focus more on events that elite found more relevant versus what the big mass of participants might find important or not, I’m also European and part of the European – and at some degree American – trail scenes mostly, and even if I’m informed of what’s going on in other parts, probably I have some bias there. Those are only that, opinions based on what I’m observing in 10 different aspects of the sport.

1. The Olympic..dream?

I remember when I started ski mountaineering in 2002 and the conversation of being Olympic was already there. Every year there were IOC officials going to the races, every year it seemed that in the next edition of the Olympic games skimo would be there. It took 20 years to became a reality, and the sport transformed a lot in that period. From a mountaineering sport (it was basically a 2-4h race sport most in teams) to a speed sport (Olympic disciplines are 3 to 8 minutes efforts, and other discipline sin the world cup are 20 minutes to 1h30). I see what Olympism has brought to skimo (participation of more countries, more visibility for those races in mass media, more support for the very top athletes) and also what hasn’t (The participation of athletes, specially amateur, in races has decreased a lot – the climate change and less snowy tendency hasn’t helped either there, the number of races has decreased and the amateurs don’t identify as much with the competitors as their discipline is different from what they do) In the big picture what I mean is that becoming a Olympic sport doesn’t really means that the sport will become more known and participation will increase because of it. If we look at all the olympic sports, most are niche and only the very top athletes are making a living of it – in the best cases. Popular sports are popular indifferently of being in the Olympic Games.

Trail running sits there in the middle. Is a sport and an industry that is healthy in number of participants, in the economics of the top athletes (if we compare to the bast majority of sports) and in the industry of the sport all comprised. Being Olympic is nothing that will specially benefit trail running in general. I believe it will not hurt it either in the most part. In 2026, World Athletics, in coordination with the ITRA and WMRA, has solidified a proposal for the Brisbane 2032 Summer Games, Golden Trail Series and Salomon has also been campaigning for it,  and because IOC likes nothing more than dollars and trail running is a growing sport with a solid industry behind, the path to enter the games would eventually be easier than skimo for instance.

Where the sport might benefit is probably in the participation of nations that are not interested in trail running today. When WMRA was recognized in 2002 by IAAF (World Athletics) we saw that more runners from east Africa, specially Uganda, Eritrea and Kenya came to participate at its championships because their relation and structure to IAAF more than the interest in the sport per se. In this year world championships we could see how some possible medal contenders like Elhoussine Elazzaoui or Miao Yao didn’t participate not because they didn’t wanted but because their nation athletics federations, Morocco and China, have not a structure for trail running. That will probably change if the sport becomes olympic and those and other countries will develop structures into their athletic federations to support trail running athletes.

Where the sport might suffer is in the identity of the sport. Today, still many struggle to identify what trail running is because they think of it as a single discipline instead of a sport with multiple disciplines, and even when we talk disciplines, in general people understand changes in discipline by different distance – making the parallel to the “most similar” sport, athletics. But the reality in trail is that the axes of differentiation of disciplines are mostly 2: distance and technicality. It would be more like cycling, where you have disciplines on track, road, gravel, and mountain bike. They all have different distances and are raced in different terrains.

So If Trail running goes to the Olympic games it will not be 7 different competitions of trail in the games (we could think about uphill/VK, classic mountain running, short trail, long trail, ultra trail, short skyrunning, long skyrunning as some of those disciplines) but a single one, and because the second thing IOC likes the most after dollars are rules, the format of that competition would be pretty fixed, and to be contained for TV and spectators in a place, the “Olympic Trail” vision favors a multi-lap loop rather than a point-to-point or circuit race like the ones we are used. This allows for the high-density spectator zones and drone-camera coverage required for global TV.

We can see that this is something already happening at some degree in competitions like the Golden Trail Series, where, besides the 2 or 3 historical races in the circuit – that still maintain the most number of elites and popular runners participating and the most views on livestreamings- the others trend to go versus a loops or “start” format that is more public friendly. What we see is that those series, even if they are interesting for the elites for reputation and economical opportunities, often become less interesting for the participants, and we see races with many elites but low participation and the general trail runner fan less interested on it.

That, in theory, doesn’t make the races to be less interesting, but in reality it often happens because the fact that the loops start in a village makes that the circuit is held in proximity of that urban area, making more difficult to access more remote areas where the technicality of the terrain is often higher and where the endurance challenges are different – longer uphills and downhills, hotter/colder environments…- versus circuits with a higher amount of paved surfaces, short up and downs that might favor the fight of runners but that they part aspart from the very origins of the sport. By the standardization we can also predict less technical circuits to avoid hazards and therefore we could expect those races being a long (or very long) cross country race with some elevation more than a trail running race.

Will that alienate the identity of trail running from participants and olympic elites and olympic TV spectators? Probably. Will that be a problem? Probably not because the sport is solid enough to don’t need the olympics and therefore have the 2 versions in parallel, a bit like triathlon, where there is a Olympic discipline that is interesting for athletes and a few fans, and other disciplines (Ironman, half distance, popular triathlons, etc) where amateur and pros participate and the industry of the sport is sustained independently of what’s happening in the Olympic discipline. We have enough diversity in formats and circuits that if one of them decides to go there, the amateur runners will still have a big number of options to participate in what trail represents for them in the other circuits and independent events that are strong enough – if not stronger to sustain the industry.

Probably the only con of being olympic will be that every trail runner will need to explain several times every year at the work and Christmas dinners that no, what they do is not 10 loops of 5km in a urban parkour circuit, but that trail running is also long runs in the wilderness.

2. The elite financials: Prize money vs. sponsorships

20 years ago, there was not really any professional trail runner, only a few mountain runners from Italy in the military / police sport corps and a few we were dirtbaging with a few money from sponsors and very low budget lifestyles. In the early 2010’s a few dozen athletes we started getting some sponsorship deals that made possible living exclusively from the sport. That has been growing quickly and by now there are around a hundred trail runners worldwide that make enough to meet the average living wage requirement.

We all see all over the news how much football, basketball players earn, but the reality of most sports is very different. Over 50% of track and field athletes ranked in the world’s top 10 earn less than $15,000 annually from the sport. Approximately 25–30% of Olympians in USA live below the poverty line ($15,000/year). Most rely on “The Bank of Mom and Dad,” GoFundMe campaigns, or part-time jobs (e.g., coaching, construction, or bartending). At the end for a mid-tier Olympic athlete, the “profit” is often negative. Between travel to meets, coaching fees, and physical therapy, many athletes spend more to compete than they earn in stipends.

If we look at olympic sports, only the very top athletes can make a substantial profit or make a good living from it.

Before thinking at how much or why athletes get paid that or that other, we need to understand the model of professional trail running. Before it reaches the athlete, money enters the sports world through five primary sources:

Most of the sports have a different distribution of the shares from those sources. Mostly Sponsorship (directly or to the team), Government and Prize money/appearance. And all the models have different advantages and disadvantages. For example, in a model where the athlete gets most of his funding from the government, the athlete can focus exclusively on training/performing without the need of creating content, being on social media, etc. But often those grants or salaries are pretty low and they last for short periods so athletes tend to find also sponsorship to get some more money. In a model like triathlon, where the most of the earnings come from the prize money and appearances, there is a big pressure in performing and not getting injured.

A key thing to understand is if a sport fan base / and revenue is based in a spectator sport or a practitioner sport. A spectator sport is that one where the fan often doesn’t practice but likes to watch, there goes most of the team sports. A practitioner sport we have the one where fans are also people running the same races, like road running, triathlon or trail. Cycling will sit probably in the middle since pro cycling is a close event (amateurs can’t enter a pro-cycling race) but the ones following pro cycling are in most part amateur cyclists.

Trail running revenue for athletes comes in the biggest part from sponsorships. There are many events that have prize money but the quantity is often very low to make a sustainable living from it. We need to understand that most of the events are organized by local associations, clubs and just fans of the sport in a non-profit basis. There are a few exceptions of profit based events and series, but even if we look at the most iconic events in the sport, the majority are run by associations (in ultras, Western States, Hardrock 100, Grand Raid Reunion are non-profits, UTMB is from a profit company, in short distance, Sierre-Zinal, Zegama, Marathon du Mont Blanc, Pikes Peak, are all from associations) Therefore the prize money scalability is limited in this model. In circuits is a bit different, since Skyrunning is a private circuit – a company runs the circuit with a concession from the ISF – Golden Trail Series is private, World Trail Majors (and some of the races in it) and UTMB (and the finals and some of the races in it) are also private.

At the end of last year we heard the announcement of Broken Arrow to increase largely its prize money, as well as Golden Trail Series has announced the same.

But of we look in the past, those that have put big prize money haven’t succeed in attracting many of the best athletes or not for a long period of time. Some examples like the San Francisco Endurance Challenge was somewhat successful at bringing good competition, but didn’t sustain in the time. Run Rabit Run or UROC has never attired a big density of top athletes despite its prizes. Same with circuits, despite having bigger prizes World Trail Majors has not attracted more tops than UTMB’s and Skyrunning not more than Golden Trail’s.

For the moment it seems that top athletes are still more attracted by the reputation of the races than its prizes. And that is not because trail runners are athletes with higher values, no, we all also want to make a descent living, but is because in how the sport model is made today, with pretty big sponsorship money, for many athletes the cash from the sponsor is larger than the prizes they could get doing a race or circuit that might not be interesting for the sponsor, or that the bonuses that the sponsor puts in some low prize races are bigger.

It will be interesting to see if with an increase in the privatization of some events and circuits it shifts towards a different model. In my opinion trail running is so much sustained in the narrative of some races that they will be still ahead of most lucrative events for top athletes because the sponsors at the end want to bring connection to non-professional runners (the ones who buy their products) and those are more inclined to dream about this events. Time will tell.

3. The Death of technical races?

in 1992 there was a race going up and down from Courmayeur to the summit of Mont Blanc. Today it would be impossible to organize it. Not because of permissions (That might be hard to get, but take away Mont Blanc and put another similarly technical and exposed route where getting permissions would be possible) but because it would be the nightmare of any organizer. The democratization of the sport has created a safety paradox. As thousands of runners enter from road-running and other endurance sports backgrounds, organizers are facing soaring insurance and liability concerns.

When in the 90’s and early 2000’s races up to Mont Blanc, Breithorn and many skyraces were organized, most of the participants came from a mountaineering background, and they had a knowledge of the exposure and consequences and a technical capacity to 1. stay alive 2. stay safe 3. run fast that is missing in most part of the practitioners today. That’s normal, at that period, race participants were counted by tens – if!- and today by thousands, and that means more diversity in the participants backgrounds.

This year during the celebration of the Mountain and Trail running world championships in Canfranc it was a lot of medias and athletes reporting about how technical the race was. The race wasn’t technical. It was hard (elevation/distance ratio) but not technical if we compare it to technical races. Races like KIMA, Travesera or the disappeared Glen Coe Skyrace, Tromsø skyrace or Sentiero delle Grigne are a few examples of technical races that as we see are disappearing.

On one side we can see that decrease because organizers have a harder time to obtain permits for such races or to obtain insurances, and also to make sure that all participants are safe out there. Since it’s more a question of control of the technical level of the participants than a system to “secure” the race courses, there is more and more difficult to assess the technical level of participants beforehand. 20 years ago, the number of trail runners was small and most organizers knew quite well all the participants. We can see some races putting into systems asking a curriculum of races and mountain activities done by applicants to participate and strong limitations of number of participants but at some point all demands also trusting what athletes say their technical level is, and as today there is no standards on that, interpretations can vary a lot.

I remember few years ago having a discussion with a newly converted trailrunner with a strong track and road background of the use of road supershoes in technical terrain. He was convinced they worked very well and I was saying the contrary. After a few minutes we realized the problem was on what we understood by technical terrain. For him, it was ondulated dirtroads and mellow trails where he did some of his easy trainings when road running. For me it was scrambling to low 5th class terrain.

The organizers of those races, with few participants due to its nature, are all done non-profit, and the stress of organizers is pretty high thinking all time on what can happen if some participants have not the skillset necessary or if an accident happen no matter those skills – accidents in mountains happen-. So with time, most of them cut the technical or exposed parts or disappear, because the incentives to keep them are low compared to the possible benefits (and there the biggest one is the proudness of organizers in sharing a nice route with fellow athletes) became lower. Even Skyrunning, that has been the porter of this races, has been evolving towards less technical races, that can allow more participants and without a technical skillset to be profitable and to become more of a mass circuit.

Trail running had many different epicenters / disciplines until the early 2000’s where the sport started globalizing, therefore the runners of each community had a deep understanding of the demands of the races (fell runners understood that was all off trail, no marking, skyrunners that they might fell into a crevasse, etc) but with the globalization of the sport, as athletes were crossing over different disciplines those non written demands of the races were blurring. Skyrunning with an increase of participants decreased the technical level of its races. In an attempt to normalize those demands a new founded ITRA created a effort-distance adding elevation gain to the horizontal distance and created an algorithm to calculate your level no matter where you were racing, later, UTMB created a similar performance index based on the same parameters. The theory is great since it can indicate athletes if they are prepared to a certain demand or not and what is their level. The big problem, in my opinion, is that all those index are bilinear: they count distance and elevation gain, so all the technical aspects are more or less loss. Other disciplines that has a strong technical component rate (in mountaineering we have the F to ED+ grading, in climbing different grades systems, in ice climbing, etc). Problem with trail running is that at the end is a 3 linear activity. We have distance and elevation gain, but also technicality. In the past we tried to convince organizers of series and federations of the importance of this 3rd axe, but without success of implementation. One of the reasons IMO is that in this sport, it’s been a “harder/bigger is better” talk and many organizers publicized their events as the “hardest of…” without looking into the reality of the difficulties. At the end, because all indexes neglect that technical grade, athletes choices in many cases are determined by how higher index they can get in a race because sponsoring opportunities and recognition is getting more and more on that direction.

I believe in the future we will see some more of this technical events, probably with very few participants and probably in half off-races events. But if we don’t want to become a long or high elevation cross country sport in the future, and for a more friendly entry to new participants into the sport, the implementation of a technical grading system will be necessary.

4. Antidoping challenge

Doping in trail running was once considered rare, but as prize money and sponsoring have increased, so has the frequency of positive tests. The sport is currently at a critical juncture to establish a transversal antidoping structure. Until today, major races and series has been doing tests independently (Many times under the umbrella of national antidoping bodies or independent antidoping organizations), but a off-competition test system is still missing and there is no uniformity on number of tests or even testing between the different races. That’s been in a big part because of the governance of the sport has been widely divided. Skyrunning under UIAA in one side, Some races under World Athletics, Private series with no link to any of the 2 federations. A single race can ask the NADO or RADO to conduct tests during the competition, and those will decide if they will do it. If the race is under an international federation or a major event organization recognized by WADA, the federation will be in charge of contracting the agency to conduct the tests. Competition controls are always urine, there is where most of the substances are detected.

In the WADA 2024 statistics we can see that 184 controls were performed under World athletics and 41 under Skyrunning.

In my experience since I began trail running more seriously in 2007, controls have been in place in major competitions (Zegama via the spanish antidoping agency, Sierre Zinal via Swiss Olympic, UTMB or Marathon du Mont Blanc via the french antidoping, etc.) So, all athletes racing in the most rellevant competitions knew that there would be controlled in races. But compared to the other sport I practiced, skimo, that was affiliated with WADA and under the ADAMS program (off competition controls) and we were randomly controlled (I have some fun stories there as one time they came not in my designed hour but in the afternoon just after I did a 16h tour in the mountains without any water and I needed to bring the testers for a few hours doing errands, taking dinner with friends in a restaurant…until I could finally pee!) Anyway. That’s what we are missing in trail running.

The OOC (off competition controls) are tests conducted without notice at any time. They’re controled by a WADA platform called ADAMS. Some National federations also have their own OOC system. Those tests can be blood (to build a biological passport of the athlete and see if it’s any suspicious changes) or/and urine to detect the substances.

To form part of ADAMS, a recognized partner of WADA should contract a Agency to conduct the testsand those will generally do both the competition tests and the OOC tests. The number of tests and athletes tested off competition will depend on the amount paid. Today the recognised partners from WADA that are part of trail running (at all the different modalities) are UIAA and World Athletics.

Ok, sorry for the long intro but I think it’s important to understand a bit how antidoping works because many ask for more controls saying is the wild west without understanding the context.

To see the actual situation of antidoping in trail running I recommend to read this article by Francesco Puppi: https://substack.com/home/post/p-173283831

Seeing that after many years where it was impossible to sit in the same table different stakeholders of the sport (federations, circuit organizers, brands) while they were focusing on building their identity and trying to diferenciate themselves from the other ones, today we are in a very different situation. Most of the stakeholders have a firm identity and strength and is much easier to enable conversations between them. WMRA, World Athletics, Golden Trail Series, UTMB, the PTRA are all working towards a form where Off Competition Controls can be done, and I predict than sooner than later it will be implemented for elite trail runners participating in main circuits and chanpionships.

5. The triathlon-fication of trail running.

As we move through 2026, the image of the typical trail runner has shifted from the the dirtbag runner or mountaineer 20 years ago to a demographic that is increasingly wealthy, older, and willing to invest heavily in the experience of the trail running lifestyle. While the sport’s popularity is at an all-time high, this evolution has created a complex landscape where participation and inclusivity exist in a delicate, often contradictory, balance.

The most visible change is the sheer cost of participation. For many, the gateway to iconic 100-mile races now requires a financial commitment that rivals high-end triathlons. With registration fees frequently exceeding €300 to €500, and mandatory gear lists adding another €500 or more, the financial barrier to entry has never been higher. This “inertia of the big race” has trickled down, creating a difficult environment for the local, low-cost events traditionally organized by small clubs or associations. As major race series raise the standards for insurance, permits, participant goodies and the whole event experience, the small-scale, grassroots race is increasingly priced out of existence. Consequently, the sport is losing the very venues that once welcomed a younger, more local, and less affluent demographic, replaced by a “travel-to-race” culture dominated by those with significant disposable income.

This economic shift creates a paradox in diversity. On the elite level, the trails have never looked more international. Professional development teams are ushering in talented young athletes, and elite runners from East Africa and Asia are now commanding the podiums of major European races. However, this diversity rarely reflects the amateur mass participation. In the middle of the pack, the demographic remains largely homogenous in terms of socio-economics. While we see the rise of the “pro” young athlete, the “recreational” young runner is becoming a rarer sight, often sidelined by the costs of travel and the complex points-based systems required to qualify for world-stage events.

Despite these economic hurdles, the most successful story of inclusivity in the last quarter-century is the rise of the female trail runner. I’s still a lot to do, there are still races where prize money, invitations and so are not equal, but there has been great improvement in female participation. In 1997, women made up a mere 13% of trail race finishers, today is around 46% in global practice. However, a “distance gap” and a competition vs recreational participation remains a stubborn reality of the sport. While women have achieved near-parity at distances of 10km or shorter, the percentage drops significantly as the mileage climbs, hovering around 23% for 50km ultramarathons and falling to roughly 15% for the grueling 100-mile distances.

The barriers to closing this gap are often more cultural than physical. Intimidating marketing, lack of female-specific facilities and safety concerns during solo training remain significant hurdles. Yet, regional successes provide a roadmap for change. Scandinavia currently leads the world in gender balance; in Finland, women represent roughly 43% of the trail community, bolstered by a deep-rooted culture that encourages outdoor autonomy from a young age. Similarly, North America has seen success through “women-only” trail series and community-led initiatives that prioritize social connection over “brutality,” helping Canada and the US maintain female participation rates near 40%.

In contrast, the traditional heartlands of trail running in Mainland Europe, such as France and Spain, remain more male-skewed, often stuck at 25-30% female participation.

As trail running continues to professionalize, the challenge for the coming years will be to ensure that the sport does not become an exclusive playground for the elite and the wealthy. The growth in female participation shows that cultural barriers can be broken, but the rising economic costs and the disappearance of small, local races suggest that the “masses” of the future may look quite different from the “masses” of the past. Balancing the prestige of the global circuit with the accessibility of the local trail associations and races, volunteer based competitions and development of trail in less wealthy areas through associations remains key for a inclusive future of the sport.

6. Back to local connections?

In the last point I was talking about the sport being more global and where local communities had less of an impact than having a sense of belonging to the sport through being part of their global events. But as often a high on one side of the spectrum serves to also reinforce the other extreme we are seeing a growth on local communities that are somehow disconnected – or not really caring – about the what is going on in the sport in other places.

If social media in the 2010’s helped to bring information of what was going on in some local movements or cultures to a world audience, the technological advances and the fathomless amount of information we are getting daily made this information overwhelming and not relatable to our reality. In the near future, with the advances of AI it will be harder and harder to distinguish what is real and what is fake, and therefore the trust on information, specially on social media, would be lower. In a world with more information and misinformation it’s hard to relate to what someone is doing in another place of the world. What we could be certain is happening is what we experience with our proper eyes, and we can trust people we know well. The raise of community leagues, or challenges therefore is something where athletes can compare and bring value.

FKT’s is a great example of it. Despite the information we have about FKT’s all over the globe, we don’t really care about those happening far away because we can’t understand really what it means to do that route in that time, but often we can see how the local trail or climbing community is very enthusiastic about a FKT happening in the area and the attempts and times of the members of that community. Same with some local races that have a deep meaning for the members of that specific community but it doesn’t get outside of it. Often the communication of those facts is not even transmitted outside of those communities, via private groups in social media, message boards or just mouth to ear. The members of those communities often feel more engaged to what’s happen locally to whatever is happening internationally, and contribute largely in trail work, local clubs activities and training groups etc. Off -competitions are also common in between those communities.

A phenomena like the burrito league that have some great exposure is an example of that, being very local, people from those communities can relate to the meaning of those efforts but outside of them it just don’t makes any interest because of the same.

At the same time that trail running becomes more exclusive because the high entry fees and logistical difficulties of racing, very local and “closed” groups and communities will grow in the search of a accessible sport with deep roots in the local landscapes.

7. Team dynamics and racing landscape.

Many of the sponsored athletes from a same brand now operate like pro cycling teams. With some sort of support to the athletes (logistics, specific gear development, training, performance support, etc) giving to athletes a more supportive entourage and a professional system that allows them to perform better in the competitions but at the same time, the demands from the sponsors-team are also different from the past.

In the past, trail runners had a big freedom of deciding their calendars from the races they wanted to do and the sort of projects they dreamed. Even if that is still somehow present in professional trail running, it’s changing quickly. Athletes feel more the pressure of performing to keep contracts. If in the past we could see brands sponsoring more in a “mountaineering” way, with very long term contracts and building stories around those athletes. Today we are seeing more of a fast build up of those athletes careers very linked to performance and also dropped quickly after performance decreases. There are more brands with teams and that means more opportunities for athletes to become professional, but also that athletes are changing teams more often, and the contracts sometimes are bubbles that can go very high and very low quickly. Athletes have much better contracts than few years ago but the stability of those long time are much more volatile.

Also the calendars of the athletes are much more decided by sponsors / teams than the athletes themselves. Brands often decide the race schedule to maximize brand visibility in key markets or in races that are sponsored by them. Either being part of the obligations of the contracts or the bonuses of them. Some specific FKT’s are also entering those bonuses systems. In general those calendars are very similar across all brands and brings more depth of competition in those races and in some routes for FKT’s, but in the other side, a big part of the sport that had been the adventure – exploration and creativity is getting more rare in pro athletes.

8. The athlete as a media house

Diversification is the keyword for 2026. If in 2010 athlete communication was almost exclusively via interviews or articles in endemic or non endemic media. With the apparition of social media, those platforms gave a much more personal window for athletes to communicate. It was the blog time, then the facebook time, then the Instagram… and today we see that the use of platforms is diversifying and athletes are also using multiple platforms to reach different audiences and to talk about different subjects.

Blogging is back, the long formats are getting more common after a decade of getting shorter and shorter via the growth of platforms like substack. YouTube is also passing from being a platform where brands create content about their athletes projects to be an athlete owned channel, and Podcast formats another long form platform for athletes to express themselves.

That also means that the sponsoring relation has changed. Often in the past the athlete was promoting the brands in short format social media and the brands were in charge of the production and distribution of long form content, that is often also more costly. With the switch from brand production to athlete production we see also a change on sponsoring strategies. Athletes will have now specific partners to put that content out, as partners, sometimes not directly to the athlete but to the podcast or youtube content.

That’s something that has been long time used by “extreme” sports, like mountain bike or free skiing where athletes have been creating their own content and working directly not with the brand content team but their own content – filming teams.

9. Trail is looking towards China

While the US remains the most influential in media, trail culture, athletes visibility and brands attention, it has become increasingly insular. Europe has been the most influential in terms of team structures, in competition participation and in the governmental and structural side of the sport. Meanwhile, China and the Asian south east is becoming the sport’s economic engine.

With over 8 million active trail runners and a 9.2 billion yuan gear market, some of the most lucrative races and with bigger number of participants of 2026 are increasingly found in the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Circuits like the Golden Trail Series are putting bigger prize money in Asian races than in the ones in Europe and America, and circuits like UTMB are increasing the races in there too.

Athletes from China are also more present in international races, both in the elite and popular fields.

While influence will stay for some time American and European, with races like UTMB, Western States and athletes from those continents making the biggest part of the brands communication we will see an increase of “big” races with strong elite fields in China and also an increase of elite sponsored athletes.

South America, with strong talent and an increasing growth in amateur participation but a complicated market for brands due to import tariffs, as well as Africa, with strong talent but low amateur participation in most of the countries are still low priority for most of the stakeholders of the sport – brands, private and federal circuits – and athletes from those countries have a harder time on getting sponsored and circuits on making events there.

10. Training trends.

In the last years we have been seeing trends like heat training, big carbs intake, sweat measurements and hydration strategies, weight loaded uphills, the norwegian double threshold, the Kenyan training method etc etc getting a lot of attention.

What will come next? Probably other trends like that will come next year (continuous lactate monitoring, breathing sensors, energy expenditure measurements are getting more accurate and accessible) and will bring some great improvement in scientific research and in physiology monitoring – what means that is a lot of caveats in there and that the interpretation of those measurements is not straight but needs some deep comprehension – but we will probably have hypes on shining products that we will not have the capacity to use or that will have no scientific evidence, or on methods with low scientific evidence or that don’t work for us, but because as humans we like the fancy quick fixes that we think will make us much better athletes while reality is that 99% of our capacity comes from the BASIC and INDIVIDUAL boring and unexciting training. Hope is that we finally give more attention to those: better connections to other humans and nature, better general nutrition, lower stress and more basic training thought towards the individual capacities that every of us has.

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