The World Mountain and Trail Running Championship’s five courses have been revealed, with 365 days to go.

With 365 days to go to its opening ceremony, the countdown to the World Mountain and Trail Running Championship Canfranc Pirineos 2025 begins in earnest. In celebration of the one-year countdown to the third WMTRC, the local organising committee has announced the five championship courses. All the five races except the Uphill one will start and finish in front of the Canfranc International railway station, an iconic place in the midst of the Spanish Pyrenees to witness the world’s top mountain and trail running athletes make history of the sport.

The third edition of the WMTRC will take place between 25-28 September 2025 in Canfranc-Pirineos, Spain, picking up the baton from Chiang Mai 2022 and Innsbruck-Stubai 2023. The championship is a collaboration between World Athletics, the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA), the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) and the International Trail Running Association (ITRA), while the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA) is part of the local organising committee.

The Uphill race will be the only one which doesn’t start next to the Canfranc International railway station. It will start 2km to the North, in front of the Santa Cristina Hotel, and will finish in Larraca peak after covering 986 vertical meters in 6.5km through a pine forest. The WMTRC course in this race will be the same that World Masters Mountain Running Championship athletes competed on two weeks ago.
The Mountain Classic race will challenge the fastest mountain runners in the world. The athletes will toe the line in front of the Canfranc International railway station and will cover 15km with 820 vertical meters split in two different loops of 8 and 7km through the Epifanio ravine before reaching the finish line back at the railway station. The U20 course will go only through the first loop of the Classic race, with a length of 7,5km and 400m of altitude gain.

The Short Trail event will replicate the mythical and tough CanfrancCanfranc marathon course which has crowned trail running legends like Luis Alberto Hernando, Manu Merillas and Charlotte Morgan. It has a 44,5km length and 3700m altitude gain in total. The climbs to La Moleta and Larraca peaks, the Loma Verde area and the downhill to the finish line in the station from Collado Estiviellas–with its famous 122 bends– will be among the highlights of the race.

Much of the course will be repeated in the 82km Long Trail race (D+ 5700m), which will also cross the border to reach the spectacular Lacs d’Ayous in the French Pyrenees and, back in Spain, will pass through famous ski stations of Formigal and Candanchú.

Backed by great experience in the organisation of sporting events such as the CanfrancCanfranc–an annual event that has featured three Gold level Valsir Mountain Running World Cup races for three years–, CanfrancPirineos offers a superb sporting environment, which will allow each athlete to perform to the best of their ability and create a complete competitive experience for athletes, teams, federations and international associations. That is proven by the list of world champions who have run and won at the CanfrancCanfranc: from Kenya’s Joyce Muthoni Njeru to USA’s Grayson Murphy and Great Britain’s Charlotte Morgan, as well as Spain’s Oihana Kortazar, Manuel Merillas, Luis Alberto Hernando and Daniel Osanz.

Earlier in September 2024, the CanfrancCanfranc hosted the World Masters Championships and will host the Spanish Mountain Running Championship in June 2025 before the region welcomes athletes for the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships between 25-28 September 2025. Around 1700 athletes from 70 countries are expected to meet in CanfrancPirineos 2025.

INFO: Canfranc Pirineos 2025