Champion Kiprun: Decathlon’s “super shoe” experiment

35‑year‑old Blandine L’Hirondel, an obstetrician‑gynecologist and two‑time trail running world champion, won wearing the Kiprun Kipsummit Race. It’s Decathlon’s first carbon‑plate trail shoe and the least expensive pair on the podium.

The shoe retails in France for €199.99 and in China for ¥1199.9 (official site shows it’s sold out). The midsole uses a supercritical aliphatic TPU material (called SCF Foam in Europe and Fastech+ in the U.S.), encasing a carbon plate. The outsole uses Vibram Megagrip Litebase. Heel stacks 37.5/31.5 mm, drop 6 mm, size 42 single shoe 255 g.

A mass‑market sports retailer breaking into the elite field at an accessible price — and winning — means far more than a single shoe. Kiprun only officially went on sale in April, and within months it stood atop the UTMB podium. A redefinition of price versus performance is underway.

Runner‑up Norda: a minimalist faith in technology

Rachel Entrekin, on her UTMB debut, finished second wearing the Canadian brand Norda 055. Norda was founded in 2020 in Montréal by endurance athletes Nick Martire and Willa Martire. The brand insists on a 100% bio‑based Dyneema fiber upper and has worked closely with Vibram to develop a proprietary outsole.

No big corporate backing, no decades of brand heritage — a six‑year‑old company standing on the podium at the world’s biggest trail race is a strong rebuttal to the idea that “only big brands can win.”

Third HOKA: the giant remains, but no longer omnipotent

Emily Schmitz, 45, from Wisconsin, after ten years of human rights work in Colombia moved to Chamonix and signed with HOKA in 2021 to become a professional trail runner. She wore an unreleased HOKA prototype.

HOKA is still one of the heaviest hitters in trail running, but the podium held only one HOKA spot. Compared with a few years ago, when HOKA was a regular presence on ultra‑trail podiums, does this herald a new era — or is it just a temporary setback?

Fourth through seventh: the brand spectrum widens further

4th Careth Arnold (USA, 23:05:20) — Altra. A proponent of zero‑drop shoes, Altra still claims a place on the top stage.

5th Jazmine Lowther (CAN, 23:21:55) — Arc’teryx. A luxury outdoor brand entering race‑oriented trail running is proving to be more than just “looking good.”

6th Katarzyna Dombrowska (POL, 23:27:34) — On. The Swiss engineering brand’s trail ambitions are coming to fruition.

©Salomon

7th Lucy Bartholomew (Australia, 23:44:29) Salomon. The "godfather" brand of trail running, once an automatic podium pick, has now slipped to seventh.

Seven brands — from mass-market retail (Kiprun) to luxury outdoor (Arc’teryx), from Swiss engineering (On) to French classic (Salomon), from the zero-drop faithful (Altra) to minimalism (Norda) — no two paths are the same. Each path leads to the same finish line, but the philosophies, technologies and price points along the way differ dramatically.

Over the past decade the trail gear sector was dominated by HOKA and Salomon. Salomon, founded in 1947, has worked in mountain sports for more than seventy years, long holding the top global market share and being called the "trail running textbook." HOKA, founded by designers who left Salomon, overturned trail-shoe design with very thick midsoles. The two French brands split most of the exposure at top races.

But in 2025 the landscape began to loosen. Two ASICS prototype shoes took the top two spots in the UTMB men's race — a traditional road-running brand used unreleased prototypes to directly challenge trail running's highest stage.

In 2026 the change intensified. The women's top seven comprised seven different brands, pushing the decentralization trend to the extreme.

Why did this happen? It likely has a lot to do with trail running moving from niche to mainstream.

In 2026 almost every mainstream brand launched new trail shoes. Road-running brands collectively "went uphill" — On, ASICS, even Nike increased their investment in trail running. More players mean more competition and more diverse routes to victory.

As competition between brands heats up, athletes gain more autonomy. Top athletes no longer passively accept brand contracts; they actively choose the equipment that suits them best. Entrekin chose the young Norda; L’Hirondel chose Decathlon’s Kiprun. That suggests brand halo is weakening and product performance is doing the talking.

Another undeniable reason is that the technological barrier has lowered. Carbon plates, supercritical foaming and other material technologies are no longer exclusive to big brands but have become industry standard. This democratization of technology gives new brands a ticket to enter.

One notable contrast: men's champion Ben Dhiman wore the ASICS METAFUJI TRAIL 2, and brand concentration on the men's podium remains higher than the women's. Has the women's field entered "de-monopolization" earlier than the men's? That may be related to women's trail running commercializing later and brand bindings not yet solidified. In any case, the seven-brand pattern in the women's race has sounded an alarm for the whole industry.

For brands, there's no longer an easy win. Signing a top athlete no longer automatically equals podium exposure. Pre-race favorite Courtney Dauwalter withdrew on the first night, leaving Salomon without a top contender. On the other hand, Kiprun won the whole race with a single pair of shoes costing 1199.9 元. Results in ultra-distance trail races are always hard to predict, but this outcome still illustrates something.

For a new brand to achieve a true breakthrough it only needs to make one shoe that top athletes are willing to wear to UTMB. Norda took six years to do it; Kiprun did it with one shoe.

For the industry, trail running is undergoing "maturation." Equipment diversification is a hallmark of a sport maturing. Look at the marathon shoe market: from Nike Vaporfly's early near-domination to today’s field of adidas, Saucony, ASICS, Brooks and others. Trail running is following that trajectory — but at a faster pace.

2025 saw ASICS prototypes take the men's top two; 2026 saw seven different brands in the women's top seven. What about next year? Maybe an eighth or ninth brand will reach the podium, maybe a Chinese brand.

For consumers, choice anxiety and choice freedom coexist. Seven brands on the podium means at least seven "validated" technical paths on the market. Carbon-plate, plate-less, maximal midsole, minimal midsole, zero drop, low drop — each has top athletes' selections as endorsement.

The myth of "you must wear XX to win" is gone. But more choices also mean consumers need more information to judge what suits them. The good news is that information is becoming increasingly transparent.

04

This is not an end, but a beginning.

The seven brands in the 2026 UTMB women's top seven are not an isolated event. They are a slice of the trail running gear industry's "decentralization."

A sport only truly belongs to everyone when it is no longer defined by one or two brands. The seven pairs of shoes on the podium came from seven countries, seven technical philosophies, and seven price brackets. Their only commonality: they all finished the 174-km UTMB course with nearly 10,000 meters of ascent.

The appeal of trail running has never been about "what you wear" but about "how you run." Yet when shoes from seven different brands occupy the top seven at the world's most-watched trail race, the fact speaks for itself: in this sport there is no single "right answer," only countless paths to the finish.And every one of those paths deserves to be taken seriously.