Christian Meier wins famous 150-km running race
The 2008 national road race champ is first Canadian to win TDS at UTMB
Former pro cyclist Christian Meier, has won the TDS, the 150-km ultra mountain race with 9,315 metres of elevation gain at UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc) that takes place in the lead-up to the main event, a 100-miler around the base of Mont Blanc. His time was 19 hours, 36 minutes, 35 seconds. This is the first time a Canadian has ever won one of the races leading up to UTMB.
Collector’s item: The Symmetrics Pro Cycling Team comic book
“Cycling is very easy compared to running,” Meier said after finishing. “Thank you to everyone for the support. I still don’t believe it. The feeling of crossing that finish line is something I will never forget.”
From Italy to France
TDS, which stands for “Sur les traces des ducs de Savoie” (in the footsteps of the Dukes of Savoy), the race takes runners from Courmayeur in northern Italy’s Aosta Valley to the Savoie, through the villages scattered among the foothills of Mont-Blanc and ending, like all of this week’s UTMB races, in Chamonix. 1,649 runners started Monday, and the race has a cutoff time of 44 hours. Simen Hjalmar Wästlund of Sweden finished second, in 19:57:41, and Yannick Noël of France was third, in 20:18:02.
View this post on Instagram
Meier, who is from Sussex, N.B. but lives in Girona, Spain, is making a name for himself on the trail-running scene, after a successful cycling career (he competed in the 2014 Tour de France as part of the Orica team, and was 2008 elite road champ.)
Second win of 2023
In June, he entered the 50K event at Trail 100 Andorra by UTMB at the last minute when a friend had to bail, and won. And earlier this year, he represented Canada in the 85-km men’s long trail event at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Innsbruck-Stubai, Austria. Placing 53rd among 122 finishers at Worlds, Meier wrote that “while it seems it ended poorly…I take so many positives from this race. I felt maybe my strongest yet as a runner. I have trust in my process.”
When asked about his motivation for such a gruelling race, Meier got straight to the point. ‘Anything you want is inside you, you just have to be willing to dig to find it.”
