Julien Veysseyre becomes first amputee to finish the UTMB loop
French para athlete Julien Veysseyre walked under the Chamonix finish arch and into the record books: the first amputee to complete the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc’s full loop.
Forty-four hours on one biological leg
Veysseyre lost his right leg in a workplace accident at 18, later winning the 2023 para-triathlon world title before joining Salomon’s para team. He finished the CCC 100 km sister race last year; this year he came for the main event — roughly 174 km with about 9,700 metres of climbing on the adjusted loop.
AFP-reported details carried in finish coverage said five pacers rotated through two nights and carried a second prosthesis for terrain changes. Tracking summarised by French outlets counted under two hours total stopped time across the race.
A finish without an asterisk — because there is no category
UTMB does not run a para division. Veysseyre’s name appears among every other M4 finisher, with no adjusted clock and no separate podium. That administrative gap is part of why the result resonated: it is a plain finisher line in a plain results file.
He reached the arch with more than two hours of cutoff remaining after organisers pushed Friday’s start from 17:45 to 19:45 and removed a technical ridge section for weather. Men’s winner Ben Dhiman had already broken 19 hours a full day earlier.
Champagne in the blade
French sports coverage circulated a finish-line image of Veysseyre pouring champagne into his racing prosthesis — a gesture that flipped the device from symbol of loss to trophy. He told mixed-zone reporters the reception surprised him; by his account, runners still on course knew his first name.
One finish does not create a classification system. It does make the absence of one harder to defend. For endurance sport, that may be the lasting September headline from Chamonix.