Sierre-Zinal 2026 Recap

The 2026 Sierre-Zinal trail race ran through the Swiss Alps this morning, with Kiriago coming within 48 seconds of, but not quite topping, Kilian Jornet’s 2024 course record:

In the women’s race, the delta between Florea and Mathys’ course record was a bit larger (6 minutes, 24 seconds); the Ghost of Maude Mathys 2019 run will continue to haunt the course yet another year:

This year’s race ended up being cooler than the prior two years. (As a dumb American, I forget that 3 degrees celsius is pretty significant):

This chart shows the max temperature by 14:00, which, admittedly, was after the race was over for all of the elites. A more granular view of temperatures over the race is as follows:

Or as it might have looked for the athletes running through the course in the Swiss Alps:

There was a lot of movement in the men’s race, however some of it is exaggerated with how my carnage chart is rendered. Kirago and Kipngeo were very close through much of the race, Kiriago making a slight break somwhere after Barneuza (26 km), triumphing by only 33 seconds:

While a few runners in the top 10 faded over the course, Michael Selelo Saoli fought strong, rising from 14th place 7 km in, to securing a place on the podium by Barneuza (26 km):

The women’s race had less overall carnage in the top 10; Monica and Morven were actually very close through the first 20 km:

However, there was a lot of position jockeying, with Caroline Kimutai rising from 5th place at Ponchette (7 km) to 2nd place at Zinal: