Many of the world’s leading ultra-trail athletes have arrived in Cape Town for the traditional end of the year finale to the 2025 season as the RMB Ultra-trail Cape Town (UTCT) gets under from tomorrow (Friday 21 November).
Five weeks ago, early season south-easterly wind blew the heart out of the Cape Town Marathon, leading to its cancellation, and gusting wind has played havoc with the preparations and plans of Ultra-trail Cape Town.
While the Race Expo’s marquee tents had to be dismantled in the face of the strong wind, there is little likelihood of the continent’s most prestigious trail race being called off, with the elements, however fierce, part and parcel of the sport. And the 12th edition of UTCT promises to deliver top contests for podium positions in all six races on offer.
Cape Town is a world-class destination shaped by two oceans and Table Mountain National Park, containing a dramatic mountain chain that stretches from Table Bay in the north to Cape Point in the south. UTCT offers a distance to suit every trail runner – 100 miler, 100km, 55km, 35km, 23km and 16km.
These races will transport runners to some of the most iconic places of natural beauty on and around Table Mountain, a World Heritage Site and one of the Natural Seven Wonders of the World. These include Lion’s Head, Signal Hill, 12 Apostles trail, Llandudno, Hout Bay, the Constantia Winelands, the upper slopes of Kirstenbosch Nature Reserve, Newlands Forest and Devil’s Peak.
For the truly courageous, the UTCT 100 miler takes participants even further afield, to the more remote southern mountains, taking in additional trails from Silvermine to Kalk Bay, Kommetjie, Simonstown and beyond.
The races cover technical terrain with steep ascents and descents, with all six races described as ‘genuine mountain excursions over some highly technical trails’.
Ultra-trail Cape Town has travelled many miles since its inaugural year in 2014, which offered a choice of three distances – 17km, 62km and 100km – where KZN’s Eric Ngubane and Gauteng’s Nicolette Griffioen raced to emphatic victories in blustery conditions.
Apart from the limited race choice, the notable difference to this year’s event was in the quality of the athletes. Understandably in its first year the podiums were dominated by South African athletes, and the winning margins were massive, with both Ngubane and Griffioen finishing close to an hour ahead of their nearest rivals.
International athletes have increasingly dominated, notably so in the UT100km, the event’s most prestigious and competitive race. Last year only two South Africans made the top ten in both men’s and women’s competitions. Branden Hulley and Oli Morris bagged 9th and 10th in the men’s and Samantha Reilly and Cleo Albertus 4th and 9th in the women’s.
This year’s line up for the UT100 is as strong as ever. Once again many of the world’s leading ultra-trail athletes who failed to complete the gruelling Ultra-trail Mont Blanc in August are seeking solace in Cape Town, hoping to end their year on a high.
Two talented Americans, Chris Myers and Jeff Mogavero fall into this category, their demise in Chamonix following their spectacularly successful Western States Endurance Run over 100 miles in June, where Myers finished second ahead of all-time great, Kilian Jornet, with Mogavero fourth.
The Americans start as favourites, but all eyes will be on Russian athlete, Dmitri Mityaev, who followed a superb 2023 (which included five significant victories, including at the UT100 in Cape Town) with a disappointing string of ‘DNFs’, including at the UT100 in Cape Town last year and this year’s UTMB in August.
One of the team of elite adidas TERREX athletes who will be racing in their newly launched 2025 Agrivac range of shoes, Mityaev has the talent and route experience to win, if he can turn around his recent poor finishing form.
Frequent visitor to South Africa, German Marcel Hoeche, will be racing the 100km for the first time in Cape Town and will be eager to add to and improve on his consistent results in the country, since winning the UTCT 35km in 2021. Hoeche placed 4th at the Otter TERREX Trail this year and 3rd in the Cape Town Trail Marathon after leading for much of the race.
Eastern Cape athlete, Thato Kabeli, heads the South African line up following wins in the Ultra-Trail Drakensberg 100km earlier this year and in the Sky Run 100km late last year, with local athletes Matt Healy, Kyle Bucklow and Oli Morris also looking for top ten positions.
Nepalese athlete Sunmaya Budha is one of the most improved athletes of the year and arguably the highest profile athlete in Cape Town this weekend. Her second place to world number one trail athlete, Katie Schide, in the Long Trail (82km) in the World Mountain and Trail Championships in Spain in September represented her racing pinnacle and she will be looking to build on that performance in Cape Town.
German Rosanna Buchauer DNF’d at the World Champs and at Western States but her 5th place at the 2023 World Championships and 3rd in last year’s UTMB CCC marks her as Budha’s strongest competitor, while Russian Antonina Iushina will be looking to go one better than her runner-up position to Jazmine Lowther in last year’s race.
Australian Lucy Bartholomew won the 2017 UTCT 100km as a 21-year-old ultra-trail sensation. She has made a come back to ultra-trail competition in recent years, having finished 2nd in the Australian Ultra 100km last year and 7th in the gruelling Ultra-trail Mont Blanc in August and will be a popular competitor in the 100km on Saturday.
Two of Cape Town’s leading ultra-trail athletes, Samantha Reilly and Emily Djock, have withdrawn their entries and will be supporting and crewing from the sidelines, rather than competing for a podium finish this year.
Another TERREX athlete, Aleksei Tolstenko, starts favourite to win his third straight title in the UTCT Miler over 161km, where he has been in a class of his own after losing to Greek star, Fotis Zisimopoulos in 2022.
The Russian, who also bagged a ‘DNF’ at UTMB in August, appears to have too much class and form for his rivals, but could be challenged by American Adrian Macdonald, who has excelled in the Tarawera Ultra over 102km in New Zealand, having won it in 2024 and placed third earlier this year, and Swede Simon Wastlünd, who achieved several podium positions in Scandanavian ultra-trail races this year.
Zimbabwe-born, Admire Muzopambwa, who won the Pass to Pass 100km in Wellington, South Africa, and the Ultra-trail Drakensberg 100 in the first half of the year and finished second in the MUT Miler in George in May, could be Southern Africa’s top finisher although evergreen Doug Pickard, who boasts 100 mile wins in the MUT at George and in the Ultra-trail Drakensberg, could also contend for another podium finish.
Tomorrow’s Peninsula Traverse 55 is set to produce some of the most competitive racing of the weekend, with ‘Flying Scot’ Robbie Simpson likely to be pushed all the way to the finish in his attempt to make it four wins out of four in the UTCT ‘mid-distance’ ultra-race.
Simpson has excelled in races in South Africa, having also pocketed three Otter titles, and his form and pedigree make him a formidable rival over the course he knows well.
Simpson’s TERREX teammate, American Jeshrun Small, who finished second behind Simpson last year, could again be his closest rival and will be running high on confidence following his impressive 5th place at the UTMB CCC in August. But the space on the podium could be tight with Greek athlete Konstantinos Paradeisopoulos and Tiago Vieira of Portugal (1st and 2nd at the Madeira Island Ultra 60km in April) also fighting to be in contention.
Slovakian Peter Frano and Spanish athlete Miguel Heras have dropped down from the 100km to run 55km and have strong ultra-trail racing records, while American Cody Lind won the 62km at UTCT in 2022.
But don’t rule out a South African presence on the podium with the country’s leading trail athletes Daniel Claassen, Robbie Rorich, Kane Reilly, Mvuyisi Gcogco and Josh Chigome all targeting this race in their hopes to take down some leading international athletes.
South Africa’s hopes of a win in the longer-distance races, however, could lie in the women’s competition in the PT55, with Bianca Tarboton going beyond the 52km in the Tarawera Ultra in New Zealand (which she won this year) for the first time in her career.
In spite of the presence of experienced international athletes, Varvara Shikanova of Montenegro, who finished 3rd and 4th in the UT100 in Cape Town in 2022 and 2023, and Tarboton’s TERREX teammate, Kimi Schreiber, who won the UTCT 35km in 2024 and placed 2nd to Landie Greyling in the 55km in 2022, Tarboton’s red-hot form his year suggests she will be hard to beat ‘in her back yard’.
Rebecca Watney, Rebecca Kohne and Maryke van Zyl are other leading South Africans who will be looking for strong finishes amongst the top ten places.
The weekend’s racing gets underway tomorrow at 07h00, with the start of the Peninsula Traverse 55 from Llandudno, while the final race of the weekend, the Table Mountain 35, starts at race headquarters at the Gardens Tech Rugby Club in Oranjezicht at 06h00 on Sunday.
Racing schedule
Friday 21 November
07h00
Peninsula Travers PT55 (56,7km) with 2644m of elevation gain (14,5 hour cut-off)
Start: Llandudno Primary School; Finish: Gardens Tech Rugby Club, Oranjezicht
08h30
Kickstarter K16 (15,8km) with 665m of elevation gain (6,5 hour cut-off)
Start: Beau Constantia; Finish: Gardens Tech Rugby Club, Oranjezicht
17h00
UTCT 100 Miler (161,5km) with 7187m of elevation gain (45 hour cut-off)
Start/ finish: Gardens Tech Rugby Club, Oranjezicht
Saturday 22 November
04h00
Ultra Trail UT100 with 4972m of elevation gain (26 hour cut-off)
Start / finish: Gardens Tech Rugby Club, Oranjezicht
09h00
Explorer EX23 (23,5km) with 1038m of elevation gain (6,5 hour cut off)
Start: Alphen Trail; Finish: Gardens Tech Rugby Club, Oranjezicht
Sunday 23 November
06h00
Table Mountain TM35 (34,5km) with 1928m of elevation gain (11 hour cut-off)
Start / Finish: Gardens Tech Rugby Club, Oranjezicht
