TOR DES GÉANTS HISTORY: 330 KILOMETERS AROUND THE AOSTA VALLEY
The first edition set off from Courmayeur on September 12, 2010, with 310 runners from 17 countries following the Alta Via 1 and 2 in a loop around the Aosta Valley. Ulrich Gross finished first in about 80 hours. Annemarie Gross won the women's race in roughly 91 and won again in 2011.
Sixteen years later the format has not changed. The 2026 edition starts from Courmayeur on September 13.
What the race is
The course covers 330 kilometers with about 24,000 meters of climbing, which is more than twice what a 100-mile mountain race asks and close to three times the height of Everest measured from sea level.
It is a single stage. The clock runs for 150 hours and does not stop. Runners sleep when and where they decide to, mostly in the six life bases spaced about every 50 kilometers, and the decision of when to sleep is the central tactical problem of the race.
The route crosses 34 municipalities, 25 passes above 2,000 meters, 30 alpine lakes and two natural parks. It ranges from 300 meters of elevation to 3,300, and it passes beneath four of the peaks over 4,000 meters that ring the valley: Gran Paradiso, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc.
Forty-three refreshment points and about 2,000 volunteers support it. Roughly 60 percent of starters finish, a rate that is high for the distance and reflects the 150-hour limit more than the difficulty of the terrain.
The Aosta Valley context
The Alta Via trails the race uses were not built for it. They are the valley's high routes, a network of paths linking villages and refuges across the side valleys that run north and south off the Dora Baltea.
That geography dictates the course. The race does not contour. It climbs from the valley floor to a pass, drops to the next village, and climbs again, 25 times over. There is no long runnable section anywhere on the loop.
The refuges along the route function as the aid network, which is why the race could exist at this scale from its first year. The infrastructure was already there.
The early years and the interruptions
The race grew fast. Pre-registrations passed 2,000 by 2015 and the field is now capped, with around 1,100 running the 2023 edition.
It has also been interrupted more than once. In 2012 organizers stopped the race after the fifth day at Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses, 303 kilometers in, and only about 70 runners were credited with finishing.
In 2015 severe weather and ice on the passes forced a cancellation. Six runners finished.
The 2020 edition was cancelled for the pandemic.
Yang Yuan
In 2013 Yang Yuan, a Chinese runner, died after falling during the rain on the first night. A cairn marks the place where it happened, with a poem he had written.
The race has kept it there. It is the only permanent memorial on the course, and it sits early enough in the route that every runner passes it in the first hours, usually in the dark, usually before the race has properly started for them.
GPS tracking was introduced in 2017.
Sleep
The 150-hour limit works out to just over six days. Nobody uses all of it and nobody stays awake for it either.
The front of the men's race now finishes in under 70 hours, which means something close to three nights out with perhaps four or five hours of sleep total, taken in 40-minute blocks on cots at the life bases. Runners further back sleep more and finish slower, and the relationship between those two things is not linear.
The failure mode particular to this race is not injury or stomach trouble. It is the loss of judgment that comes somewhere in the third night, on a pass above 2,500 meters, alone. The life-base structure exists partly so that someone qualified sees every runner at least once every 50 kilometers.
That is also why the sleeping strategy is where the race is won. Collé's four wins and D'Haene's single one came from runners who had worked out how little they could afford and no less.
Franco Collè
Franco Collè of Italy has won four times, in 2014, 2018, 2021 and 2023, more than anyone. He is from the valley.
His times track the progression of the race. He won in 74:03:00 in 2018, in 67:27:00 in 2021, and in 66:39:16 in 2023, which stood as the fastest time in race history for two years. That is more than seven hours of improvement by one runner on one course inside five years.
The men's race has otherwise rotated. Oliviero Bosatelli won in 2016 in 72:20:00 and 2019 in 71:58:00. Javi Dominguez Ledo of Spain won in 2017 in 67:52:00. Jonas Russi of Switzerland won in 2022 in 70:31:36.
Italian runners have taken most of the titles, which is unusual for a race of this profile and is largely a function of who trains on the Alta Via.
D'Haene and the note
François D'Haene won in 2024 in 69:08:32, becoming only the second French runner to take the race in its history.
About 250 kilometers in he received a handwritten note from Martin Perrier of Switzerland, who would finish third, accusing him of cheating. D'Haene's team said afterward that no official complaint was ever filed and that the people who had appeared near him during the race, including his communications staff, were within the rules.
No investigation followed and the result stood. It remains the only time the race's outcome has been publicly contested, and the note itself became the story more than the allegation did.
The women's race
Lisa Borzani of Italy won in 2016 in 95:15:00 and 2017 in 95:57:00. Those were the last winning times over 90 hours.
Silvia Trigueros Garrote of Spain won in 2018, 2019 and 2021, running 89:10:00, 86:55:00 and 89:57:00. Sabrina Verjee of Britain broke the pattern in 2022 with 80:19:00, more than nine hours faster than the previous year's winning time.
Emma Stuart of Britain won in 2023 in 82:21:00. Katharina Hartmuth of Switzerland set the women's course record in 2024. Noor van der Veen of the Netherlands won in 2025 in 79:34:30, finishing just outside the record.
The compression is sharper than the men's. The women's winning time has come down by more than 15 hours in nine years, on a course that has not changed, which suggests the earlier editions were being finished rather than raced.
Victor Richard, 2025
Victor Richard of France won the 2025 men's race and broke Collé's course record, the first time the mark had moved since 2023.
That result and van der Veen's put both current records inside the last two editions, after a decade in which they moved slowly. The race is now attracting runners who treat 330 kilometers as a competitive distance rather than an expedition.
Why it has no real imitators
Races at this distance exist elsewhere. Very few of them have lasted, and none has reached this scale.
The reason is logistical. A 330-kilometer single-stage race needs a support network along its entire length, in mountains, for six days, and most organizers cannot build one. Aosta already had the refuges, the villages and a regional administration willing to back the event, which is why the race worked from its first year rather than after a decade of iteration.
It also means the course cannot easily move. The route is the Alta Via network, and the Alta Via network is where it is.
Finishing
The completion rate sits near 60 percent, which for a 330-kilometer race is remarkable and is a direct product of the 150-hour limit. Most entrants are not trying to race. They are trying to get round inside six days.
The six life bases are the structure that makes that possible. Runners arrive, eat, sleep, change and leave, and the volunteers at each one see the same faces coming through in waves separated by 20 hours or more.
The other TORX races
The event has grown into a week rather than a race.
TOR130 Tot Dret was added in 2017 and became a qualifying race for the main event in 2019. It runs 140 kilometers one way from Gressoney-Saint-Jean to Courmayeur along a single high route, with 12,000 meters of climbing and a 44-hour limit. Gionata Cogliati set the course record of 21:10:09 in 2024 and Davide Rivero won in 2025 in 21:44:33.
TOR450 Tor des Glaciers launched in 2019. It runs about 450 kilometers with more than 32,000 meters of climbing on the Alta Via 3 and 4, and entry is restricted to previous Tor finishers with a maximum of 100 starters. Luca Papi won the first edition in 134:10.
The field reflects that growth. Entry now requires qualifying points and the main race is capped, with Tot Dret feeding runners into it and Tor des Glaciers taking them out the other side. A runner can spend several years moving through the three distances without leaving the valley.
2026
The race starts in Courmayeur on September 13 and the cutoff falls 150 hours later. Both course records are now held by runners who set them within the last two years, and the field that arrives each September is larger and faster than the one before it.
What has not changed is the structure. There are no stages, no mandatory rest and no assistance outside the life bases. The runners decide when to sleep, and most of them get it wrong at least once.