[caption id="attachment_84003" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image: UTMB - is that Canyon Woodward taking a selfie with his iPhone?[/caption] COROS dominates wrists at UTMB - who won on most wrists? The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) is one of the pinnacles of ultra trail racing and is the World Series final. The course varies each year, this year was the longest at 176.4km (over 100 miles). Its 2024 edition had 1760 finishers from a record starting field of 2761 and its winners were Vincent Bouillard (France, 19:54:23) and Katie Schide (USA, 22:09:31). (More: Full Results) But what technology was used? Coros Dominates In recent years, Coros has made a concerted effort to become the trail watch of choice, taking over the mantle previously held by Garmin and Suunto. The 2023 race was somewhat of a technological upset when Jim Walmsley won wearing a Wahoo RIVAL...a triathlon watch rather than a trail watch! This illustrates that sub-24-hour finishing times open up the runners' choice of tech to watches not especially dedicated to Ultra Trails. Let's turn to 2024. More: The watch data is based on extensive technical research by the French site Montre Cardio GPS, (English translation) The 2024 tech winners were Coros Apex 2 Pro (BOUILLARD) and Garmin Fenix 7s Pro (SCHIDE). I determine the most successful brand to be the one on most top-20 finishers' wrists. Here's how they fared: Coros - 13 Suunto - 10 Garmin - 6 Polar - 2 by the same measure, the most successful Watch Series are: Coros Apex 2 - 8 Suunto Race - 6 Coros Vertix 2 - 4 = Garmin Fenix 7 - 3 = Suunto 9 - 3 Which makes the most successful watch to be the Coros Apex 2 Pro (7 wrists) Take Out The Apex 2 Pro from 2022 has a claimed GPS battery life of 75 hours and 25 hours in maximum accuracy mode. I suspect that this spec coupled with Coros' marketing got many of the athletes to choose the brand and stick with it since. As a trail brand, Suunto has created a lot of goodwill over the years. I suspect 2023's excellent-looking RACE models easily won back the athletes who chose to wear one this year. Garmin is surprisingly under-represented. Whilst it competes well on battery life and weight, the 7X and Enduro models have the largest screens which you would have thought would be the best to display a map for trail navigation - furthermore, I believe only Garmin and Suunto can show map elevation contours which must also be useful. Of course, the choice of watch is also influenced by sponsorship.
