The second day of the 2025 World Mountain and Trail Running World Championships (WMTRC) features the Trail World Championships (TWC) Short Trail, one of four major races at the event. As with all of these races held in Canfranc, Spain, it takes place on a big mountain course in the Spanish Pyrenees.
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The 45-kilometer (28 miles) TWC Short Trail race starts on Friday, September 26, at 8 a.m. CEST. The route is along the longtime CanfrancCanfranc Marathon course and in a single loop with 3,657 meters (12,000 feet) of climbing. Along the way, runners will take in most of the prior day’s Uphill course, cross the French border and back again, and endure a wild 122 downhill curves from the Collado de Estiviellas to the finish.
There are four major climbs, with the biggest two in the first half of the race. Winning times will likely be faster than those of past CanfrancCanfranc Marathon editions, but women’s finish times there are historically over six hours, and the men’s are over five.
Prize money is the same for all of the races, with 24,000 Euro awarded in each race. The winners take home 5,000 Euro each, with the rest being paid out five deep.
To see more of who is racing, check out the complete start list for all of the events.
In addition to our TWC Short Trail pre- and post-race coverage, we’ll provide some race-day coverage, both liveblogging here on the website and across our social media.
We also have previews for the weekend’s other races:
- 2025 World Mountain Running Championships Uphill preview
- 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail women’s preview
- 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail men’s preview
- 2025 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down preview
The 2023 TWC Short Trail women’s podium (left-to-right): 2. Judith Wyder, 1. Clémentine Geoffray, and 3. Theres Leboeuf. All three are returning to race in 2025. Photo: Roast Media/World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail Women’s Preview
Podium Potential Women
The last two TWC Short Trail champions are back. France’s Clémentine Geoffray was perhaps a surprise winner in 2023. All of the French runners skipped the recent UTMB Mont Blanc festival races, but Geoffray was third at OCC and fourth at Les Templiers 80k in 2024, and more recently, sixth at the 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc.
Clémentine Geoffray, of France, 2023 TWC Short Trail champion. Photo: Roast Media/World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
Romania’s Denisa Dragomir won the 2022 TWC Short Trail and took fifth at the 2019 TWC, and after taking a few years off to have a child, she’s currently leading the 2025 Skyrunner World Series. Dragomir consistently places in the top two in skyraces up to 35k and should thrive on the steep and rugged trails around Canfranc.
Denisa Dragomir, 2022 TWC Short Trail Champion. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Switzerland’s Judith Wyder and Maude Mathys dueled at the 2025 OCC race, four weeks before TWC Short Trail race day, finishing second and third. It was Wyder who beat Clémentine Geoffray and several other 2025 TWC Short Trail contenders at this year’s Marathon du Mont-Blanc in late June when she placed second herself. Earlier in the summer, Wyder placed second at the 2025 Zegama Marathon, and she was second at the 2023 TWC Short Trail as well. Mathys, who also placed third at the 2025 Sierre-Zinal just a handful of weeks ago, will be doubling back from the World Mountain Running Championships Uphill race the day prior to this one.
Judith Wyder finished second at the 2023 TWC Short Trail. Photo: Roast Media/World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
While on the topic of Switzerland, Theres Leboeuf is expected to be right there too, having finished third at the last edition of this race in 2023. She’s a multi-time top five finisher of the Zegama Marathon, most recently this year. She took seventh at the 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc and fourth at the 2025 Swiss Mountain Running National Championships.
Theres Leboeuf on her way to third place at the 2023 TWC Short Trail. Photo: Roast Media/World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
A strong Spanish team is headlined by Sara Alonso. She won this year’s Zegama Marathon, took a short break to overcome injury, and came back to place fourth at OCC. She was just behind Judith Wyder and Maude Mathys there, who she’ll see again at this race. All three will be working on quick recovery, but Alonso will be racing in front of a home country crowd. Alonso’s Spanish teammates Malen Osa, Patricia Pineda, and Ikram Rharsalla all have top 10 potential too. Osa was third at this year’s Zegama Marathon, Rharsalla sixth, and Pineda ninth. Rharsalla was also seventh at OCC.
Sara Alonso, the 2025 Zegama Marathon women’s winner. Photo: Igor Quijano
Grayson Murphy from the U.S. is trying something new by racing the TWC Short Trail. Murphy won gold in the Up and Down discipline at the 2023 World Mountain Running Championships and was third in the World Mountain Running Championships Uphill race that same year. She was also the 2019 World Mountain Running Champion. Murphy was third at this year’s Speedgoat 50k and fifth at this year’s Broken Arrow 46k. Murphy’s got the potential to win, and she should be up there with U.S. teammate Helen Mino Faukner. Mino Faukner was second at that same 2025 Broken Arrow 46k and won the 2023 Speedgoat 50k.
Grayson Murphy, 2023 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race winner. Photo: iRunFar/Sarah Brady
In 2023 at the World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race in Austria, Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson absolutely rocketed downhill into the lead. She couldn’t climb with race winner Grayson Murphy, but still held on for second. Alexandersson’s still just as fearless on the downhill, and she’s followed Murphy from the Up and Down race last time to the longer TWC Short Trail distance this year. Just a couple of weeks ago, Alexandersson raced the CanfrancCanfranc Marathon on the same course as the TWC Short Trail. A fall left her face badly bleeding. It took her 18 minutes to get five stitches from an ambulance at first aid, and she returned to the race to win and set a new course record in 5:39. How much faster can she go the second time around?
Tove Alexandersson finishing in second at the 2023 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Kenya’s Caroline Kimutai just won Sierre-Zinal, and that makes her a potential winner here too, on paper. She won this year’s Restonica Trail 50k, but that was really a 20-mile race won in 3:41. The TWC Short Trail course here will be longer and harder than anything she’s raced before.
Caroline Kimutai of Kenya was awarded the win at the 2025 Sierre Zinal. Photo: WMRA/Marco Gulberti
More Women to Watch
- Jade Belzberg (Canada) – 3rd 2025 & 2nd 2023 Broken Arrow Ascent; 7th 2025 Broken Arrow 23k; 2nd 2025 Gorge Waterfalls 100k
- Anna-Stiina Erkkilä (Finland) – 10th 2024 OCC; 8th 2024 Marathon du Mont-Blanc; 7th 2024 European Athletics Off-Road Running Championships Trail race
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Tereza Hrochová (Czech Republic) – 8th 2023 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down; 6th 2025 Transgrancanaria 82k
- Naomi Lang (Great Britain) – 10th 2025 Sierre-Zinal; 3rd 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc; 4th 2024 Trofeo Nasego
- Oihana Kortázar (Spain) – 7th 2023 TWC Short Trail; 10th 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc; 8th 2025 Zegama Marathon
- Cécile Jarousseau (France) – 9th 2023 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down
- Adeline Martin (née Roche) (France) – 10th 2023 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down; 15th 2022 World Mountain Running Championships Uphill; 10th 2019, 7th 2028, & 1st 2017 Trail World Champs
- Marta Martínez (Spain) – 10th 2025, 3rd 2024, & 8th 2023 Zegama Marathon
- Daniela Oemus (Germany) – 6th 2023 TWC Short Trail; 14th 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc; 7th 2024 & 1st 2023 Zegama Marathon
- Dominika Stelmach (Poland) – 5th 2024 Polish Trail Running National Championships; 4th 2024 Transgrancanaria
Adeline Martin (née Roche) winning the 2017 Trail World Championships. Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail Men’s Preview
Podium Potential Men
Norway’s Stian Angermund is a double world champion trying to score a three-peat. Angermund won the TWC Short Trail race in 2022 in Thailand and again in 2023 in Austria. Things haven’t gone well since then, though. Angermund served a 16-month doping ban across 2023 and 2024 and hasn’t been world-class in his return. He was 26th at this year’s Sierre-Zinal and ninth at this year’s Zegama Marathon. Still, Angermund is the two-time defending champion.
Stian Angermund, of Norway, on his way to winning the 2023 TWC Short Trail. Photo: Roast Media/World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
The Spanish home team has Andreu Blanes, Antonio Martínez, and Manuel Merillas as headliners. Blanes won Sierre-Zinal in 2022 and placed eighth at the race this year. He was second at this year’s Zegama Marathon, ahead of his countrymen Martínez and Merillas, who finished seventh and 19th, respectively. Martínez was eighth at this year’s OCC, and Merillas won OCC in 2022. Merillas hasn’t been on form this year though. A past winner at the Zegama Marathon in 2023, he was only 19th there this year. He did win the CanfrancCanfranc Marathon way back in 2012 in 5:05, so he’s raced on the TWC Short Trail course before.
Andreu Blanes on his way to sixth at the 2022 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
From Great Britain, Kristian Jones placed eighth at the 2023 TWC Short Trail and was fifth at the event in 2022. He just finished fifth at OCC on August 28, showing that he’s on form if he can recover properly. Thomas Roach was second at this race in 2023. The right day could find either at the front.
Kristian Jones on his way to taking fifth at the 2025 OCC in atmospheric conditions. Photo: Hoka
Three Italians are strong contenders, too. Davide Magnini is coming back from injury, but has been a top Golden Trail World Series performer in recent years. He just won the 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc, an event where he was second in 2022. Daniel Pattis is a top Golden Trail World Series performer this year and won the 2025 Italian Short Trail National Championships. Luca Del Pero was third at the TWC Short Trail in 2023 and fourth at the 2024 Zegama Marathon. He was seventh at OCC this year too.
Italy’s Luca Del Pero on the way to taking third at the 2023 TWC Short Trail. Photo: Roast Media/World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
There are six American men in the race, but take your pick of Eli Hemming, Seth Ruhling, or David Sinclair for top American honors. At least one of them will hit. Hemming and Sinclair are stepping down in distance after seventh- and second-place runs at CCC on August 29, and Ruhling was sixth at the Western States 100 in June. Hemming is perhaps the shorter-distance specialist of the trio, having placed fifth and won at the Broken Arrow 23k in 2025 and 2023, respectively, and finished second at the 2023 Marathon du Mont-Blanc. Sinclair was second at the 2025 Broken Arrow 46k, and won the event in 2024 alongside a victory at the Speedgoat 50k that same year.
Eli Hemming on his way to taking second at the 2024 Broken Arrow 23k. Photo: Andy Wacker
More Men to Watch
- Lorenzo Beltrami (Italy) – 4th 2025 Italian Short Trail National Championships; 5th 2025 Zegama Marathon
- Sylvain Cachard (France) – 7th 2024 & 4th 2023 Sierre-Zinal
- Thomas Cardin (France) – 16th 2023 & 6th 2022 TWC Short Trail; 3rd 2025 Marathon du Mont-Blanc; 1st 2024 & 3rd 2022 European Athletics Off-Road Running Championships Trail race
- Raúl Criado (Spain) – 1st 2025 CanfrancCanfranc Marathon; 7th 2025 Spanish Trail Running National Championships
- Roberto Delorenzi (Switzerland) – 5th 2024 Sierre-Zinal
- Sam Hendry (Canada) – 10th 2025 CCC; 2nd 2024 Speedgoat 50k
- Max King (U.S.) – 19th 2023 & 4th 2022 TWC Short Trail
- Anders Kjærevik (Norway) – 20th 2023 TWC Short Trail; 12th 2024 Trofeo Kima
- Marcin Kubica (Poland) – 10th 2025 Zegama Marathon
- Joaquin Narvaez (Argentina) – 17th 2023 & 20th 2022 TWC Short Trail; 16th 2025 & 11th 2022 OCC
- Martin Nilsson (Sweden) – 6th 2025 Sierre-Zinal; 1st 2025 Tatra Skymarathon; 1st 2025 Hochkönig Skyrace
- Diego Ramon (Argentina) – 19th 2022 TWC Short Trail
- Alexandre Ricard (Canada) – 1st 2025 Mount Washington Road Race; 17th 2023 & 10th 2022 World Mountain Running Championships Uphill; 16th 2023 & 30th 2022 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down
- Alain Santamaria (Spain) – 1st at three 2025 Skyrunner World Series races
- Frédéric Tranchand (France) – 12th 2022 TWC Short Trail
- Ruy Ueda (Japan) – 9th 2023 & 12th 2022 TWC Short Trail; 7th 2024 Marathon du Mont-Blanc
Max King on his way to taking fourth at the 2022 TWC Short Trail. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
[In 2015, Maude Mathys received a warning without suspension from the Disciplinary Chamber for Doping Cases of Swiss Olympic for two positive tests for clomifene (previously clomiphene) after it was determined that she was mistakenly taking the drug without first obtaining a World Anti-Doping Agency Therapeutic Use Exemption.]
[Stian Angermund served a 16-month doping ban after testing positive for the prohibited masking agent chlortalidone at the 2023 OCC race in France.]
[Thomas Roach served a three-month World Athletics doping ban from October 2021 to January 2022 after testing positive for Carboxy-THC at the 2021 World Masters Mountain Running Championships in Austria.]
Call for Comments
- It’s a real mountain course. Who’s going to slay it?
- Who else are you going to be watching for a fast finish at the TWC Short Trail?
