• Last year 170 kilometers, alone, in 20 hours: the incredible challenge of the runner Pau Capell around Montblanc

"Over the years I have learned that this week I have to sleep at least five hours every night because if not then my head does not work. It is difficult, but I get it",

Catherine Poletti

admits

to EL MUNDO, although she does not know where she gets the time between delivery of numbers, presentation of athletes, promotional events, solidarity events and, above all, races, many mountain races, up to seven, with the most important in the world, the Ultra Trail of Mont Blanc (UTMB), of 170 kilometers , as the epicenter this Friday.

In Chamonix, at the foot of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps, Poletti almost twenty years ago began the fever for trail running and, there it continues, receiving the 10,000 runners who each edition crowd to register - "en 2008 the numbers were sold out in eight minutes "- and they have run the previous races that the UTMB demands. He leads a team of dozens of people, generates an impact of tens of millions for the territory and it all started by accident. Literally by accident.

In March 1999, the driver of a car threw a cigarette butt out the window in the middle of the Mont Blanc tunnel, it entered through the air filter of a truck carrying flour and margarine and the slow fire that caused killed 39 people. The tunnel was closed for three years. And the locals, like Poletti and her husband

Michel

, had to go around the highest mountain in the European Union again and again, again and again.

"Michel and I studied computer science in Grenoble and we didn't want to go to live in Paris, where there were more jobs, so we decided to open a music store in Chamonix. I had been a pianist, my family is made up of musicians, so it seemed like a good idea. One day, after the tunnel fire, we talked with some friends about recovering a race that was already being done, the return to Montblanc, but through the mountains, not on asphalt as before. And so the UTMB was born. It was 2003, we thought that 300 people would sign up and 700 came. Michel, who was a runner, was in charge of the sporting part and I had to do the organizational part, "recalls Poletti, today president of the UTMB Group, with her entire family involved: her husband Michel is still a director , his daughter

Isabelle

is the current director of the race and his son

David

runs a related timing company, Live Trail.

The Kilian Jornet phenomenon

All experienced the immediate boom of the race, which already in 2005 sold out its 5,000 numbers seven months in advance, and the appearance in 2008 of the one who is still today its reference,

Kilian Jornet

, although only one member of the family, David, suffered the latter especially.

"By regulation until the age of 20 you cannot participate in the UTMB and when he turned 20, in 2008, my son enrolled in the race. He asked me: 'Do you think I will win my age?'

And no, the truth is that he did not win. Another 20-year-old boy was a bit faster, "Poletti recalls sarcastically.

The Jornet phenomenon, which exploded that year, changed everything, the UTMB, trail running and even fashion in the mountains.

Catherine Poletti, President of the UTMB Group

With the Spanish as an icon and the race as a dream, many were hooked and all did it as he did: with increasingly fast shoes, with the new vests, with very, very light pants, T-shirts or jackets.

"For me that is the main change, in addition to the number of runners. Now there are more, they are younger and, above all, they are more prepared. In the early years trail running was very rustic. Men came, many times over 40 or 50 years old, with their beards and their very little technical clothes. The change is a matter of Kilian, yes, but also of Salomon. And it is not the brand that sponsors the race [it is Columbia], but I must admit that they were the first to innovate in our field ", concludes the president of the UTMB Group, who has now embarked on an ambitious path.

Years ago, to try to satisfy the many runners who stay out of the UTMB every year, he created a points system, ITRA points, which only allowed access to those who had a good history of previous races. Most of the trail events around the world, large, medium and small, were hit for distributing the ITRA points that allowed access to the UTMB and runners looked for them like gold. But that is over.

This year UTMB has teamed up with another similar company, Ironman, to organize a series of its own tests around the world that, in the end, will lead to the queen test around Montblanc.

In Spain, at the moment, there is only one, the Val d'Aran by UTMB, but according to Poletti admits there will soon be another and the network, sooner rather than later, will be made up of about 40 races.

Trail running was, is and will be his thing.

And it all started by accident.

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