2022 UTMB runner-up Mathieu Blanchard, who holds both Canadian and French citizenship, has won the Diagonale des Fous–a steep, technical 100-mile race on Reunion Island, off the east coast of Africa, in 23 hours, 25 minutes and two seconds. This was Blanchard’s first appearance at the race, which started Thursday evening.
Jean-Philippe Tschumi of Switzerland (who was third last year) took the second spot on the podium, crossing the line a little more than half an hour behind Blanchard, in 24:05:32. Ben Dhiman of the U.S. was third, in 24:42:53.
Le Diagonale des Fous (Diagonal of Fools) caps a suite of five races known as Le Grand Raid de la Réunion, which welcomed 2,000 competitors to its forbidding slopes this year; the race features more than 10,000m of elevation gain, along with and warm temperatures. It’s a race two-time Quebec Mega Trail champion Kelsey Hogan described as “brutally challenging” in a feature about her experience at the 2022 race published in Canadian Running’s 2023 trail special issue.
The course crosses the island from south to north (hence “diagonale”), while runners climb endlessly; the race starts at 9 p.m., so the first eight hours are spent navigating by headlamp.
Almost 3,000 runners from 35 countries are competing this year, including 13 Canadians.
Blanchard, who has podiumed twice at UTMB (he finished second to Kilian Jornet in 2022) and who finished fourth last year, was less successful at this year’s race on Sept. 1, dropping out partway along. In 2022, Courtney Dauwalter became only the second athlete ever to win both the Grand Raid and Colorado’s Hardrock 100 in the same year; in 2023, France’s Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz became the third. (Dunand-Pallaz returned this year but dropped out of the race after 14 hours.) France’s François D’Haene has won the Grand Raid four times.
Blanchard spent seven years living in Quebec, and became a Canadian citizen in early 2022.
At the time of publication, no women had yet finished the race.
For full results of this year’s Grand Raid de la Réunion, click here.
