December
02
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UTMB WORLD SERIES 2025 FINALE IN THAILAND: Race preview by Mayayo.
UTMB WORLD SERIES 2025 FINALE IN THAILAND.
Race preview by Mayayo.
The 2025 UTMB World Series season arrives at its final chapter in Thailand, and it does so with the solemnity of big events: two full weeks of racing, celebration and cultural immersion across the mountainous backbone of northern Thailand. The official press note provides the numbers—7,200 runners, 56% of them from across Asia, and the sixth edition of an event now expanded into a major festival—but the true scale is felt in the land itself. From the mighty shoulders of Doi Inthanon, the fabled “Roof of Thailand”, to the vibrant streets and forested foothills that cradle Chiang Mai, this closing act of the UTMB year feels like the series stepping fully into its Asian heartbeat.
The first weekend, 29–30 November, lifted runners into the high ridgelines of Doi Inthanon National Park, where humidity clings to moss-covered trunks and the clouds march low, brushing the temples that stand sentinel over the ancient forest. Coming up now, one week later, from 4–7 December, the scene shifts to Chiang Mai, the unofficial capital of northern culture. PAO Park becomes the race village, a crossroads where ultrarunners from across the world mingle with locals preparing to celebrate the Thai National Day on 5 December. The timing is symbolic: the UTMB World Series concluding its year in a nation honouring identity, heritage and unity.
CHIANG MAI THAILAND BY UTMB 2025
Course updates for 2025 strike a delicate balance between athletic challenge and environmental respect. The 100-mile Chiang Dao 160 and the 100-kilometre Elephant 100 now skirt the edges of the Doi Luang Chiang Dao UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, a landscape that mixes limestone towers with dense tropical forest. Meanwhile, the Hmong 50 (Day) trims its road sections to offer a purer communion with the terrain. Race director Thiti Yakul describes the two-week format as a “transformative moment”, a declaration that Asia’s Major has grown beyond the frame of a mere race into a regional trail-running epicentre. The incentives match that ambition: double Running Stones for every finisher and 210 automatic qualification spots for the 100M, 100K and 50K distances, distributed among age-group champions and the top ten men and women of each race.
CHIANG MAI THAILAND BY UTMB: The elites.
The elite field in 2025 adds gravity to the event. The Hmong 50 (Day) is the pressure cooker, with fifteen confirmed elite athletes and a density of talent reminiscent of the European classics. In the women’s races, Sunmaya Budha of Nepal (UTMB Index 786) and Switzerland’s Maude Mathys (785) will inject star power into the nocturnal Suthep 20, while Spain’s Ikram Rharsalla (775) and China’s Lin Chen (768) sharpen the competitive edge in the 50K. In the longer distances, Vietnam’s Hau Ha Thi (769) stands as the favourite for the Elephant 100.
The men’s side is equally electric: The Hmong 50 draws a quartet of world-class contenders: Hayden Hawks of the USA (912), Antonio Martínez Pérez of Spain (912), China’s Guangfu Meng (906) and Italy’s Lorenzo Beltrami (898). The Elephant 100 places the spotlight on China’s Ji Duo (909), the man to beat on a course where heat, humidity and long climbs conspire to drain the unprepared.
UTMB WORLD SERIES FINALE: Beyond the race
Beyond the competition, the event keeps evolving in how it interacts with the land and its people. Nearly half of all runners—45%—have opted to donate toward forest-fire prevention efforts within Doi Inthanon National Park, a pressing environmental concern in northern Thailand’s dry season. The “opt-out” initiative allows athletes to decline race-pack items, a small but symbolic step that has already saved 1,381 pieces from the waste stream and repurposed them into firefighting uniforms. The GreenRoad project continues recycling race-related waste into construction materials such as roadblocks, embedding circular-economy thinking into the event’s DNA.
Cultural links run even deeper. The course touches villages of the Hmong, Pga-Gan-Yaw and Karen communities, whose presence adds not only logistical support but also narrative texture—gongs echoing at aid stations, hand-woven textiles hanging under stilted houses, and young children cheering runners emerging from the jungle. This continuous thread between local culture and international sport is one of the event’s defining traits.
