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UTMB’s second toughest race will be even more challenging in 2019 at 145km

The “TDS”, the second longest race of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc week, will feature a new, longer route next year.

Organisers of the world’s most famous trail running festival have just announced that the Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie (TDS) in August 2019 will be staged over 145km (90 miles) with 9100m of elevation gain. The 2019 race will still start in Courmayeur and finish in Chamonix but feature 9100m in elevation gain Poland’s Laurent Salino winning this year’s TDS, which was staged over 121km (Credit: Laurent Salino/UTMB)

This year’s event, won by Poland’s Marcin Swierc and France’s Audrey Tanguy, covered 121km with 7300m of gain.

Still starting in Courmayeur and finishing in Chamonix, the new route will be “more beautiful, more technical, more alive”, according to the official website. The changes will also offer more adaptability in tough weather conditions.

The 11th edition of the race, which is the third oldest UTMB event, will start two hours earlier than this year at 4am to allow a 42-hour rather than 34-hour cut-off.

The TDS will now have just around 1000m less in elevation gain than the 170k long Ultra-Trail du Tour du Mont-Blanc, which is the main event of the week and generally regarded as the world’s greatest trail race.

The 2019 TDS will take place on August 27 - click here for more details of the new course.