Kaçkar by UTMB: 2,000 Athletes, 60 Countries, and a Data Gap Worth Reading

Two thousand athletes from sixty countries stood at the foot of the Kaçkar mountains, waiting for the starting signal. As the wave of runners began to move, the organisers had still not published an elite start list. No finish times. No winners' names. No split analysis. No course records.

After more than twenty years standing beside running tracks, I have learned one thing: sometimes the silence of data is itself data. When numbers speak, I simply listen. But when numbers fall silent, I must learn to listen to that silence too.

The Anadolu Ajansı report on Kaçkar by UTMB offers three verifiable facts: a field of 2,000 athletes, a reach of 60 countries, and the fact that this is the second edition. Everything else — results, standings, the full course structure — sits outside the informational frame. Not because the writer was careless, but because this genre of news is not designed for that purpose.

This is a political-sports news item. And the way it exists is itself a story worth dissecting.

The UTMB System: a brand larger than any single race

To understand Kaçkar by UTMB, one must understand the system that contains it. UTMB — short for Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc — originated as a mountain race in Chamonix, France, but has evolved into a global commercial ecosystem. This system operates on a franchise model: local races worldwide apply to join the UTMB World Series, comply with UTMB Group's technical and branding standards, and in return enjoy the leverage of the chain's prestige.

Entry mechanics do not rely on time standards the way track and road athletics do. They operate through Running Stones — a form of accumulated points earned at qualifying races, used as lottery weights for entries to the Chamonix finals. This is a fundamental difference from World Athletics. There are no ratified world records in trail running. No A-standard, no B-standard to measure performance. Performance exists only relative to a specific course, a specific surface, specific weather conditions.

I once stood before an editorial board explaining this while analysing Croatia at the 2026 World Cup. I presented Luka Modrić's 88.3 kilometres of distance covered, alongside a 21% sprint-speed decline after the 70th minute. Colleagues laughed. But when Croatia reached the final, the editor-in-chief handed me a per-match data column. I understood one thing: every sport needs its own frame of reference. Applying a road-running frame to trail is a methodological error.

In trail, the quality of an event is measured by two things: course records and the depth of the elite field. Kaçkar by UTMB provides neither. That is why any judgement about the sporting standard of this race can only be speculation.

The state-corporate coalition behind the course

The most interesting element of the report is not the figure 2,000. It is the list of backers.

Turkey's Ministry of Youth and Sports. The Eastern Black Sea Development Agency (DOKA). The Rize Governorship. The Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency. At the sponsorship tier: Turkish Airlines, TOGG — the national electric vehicle brand, Turkcell — the largest telecoms operator, and Maxis.

Reading that list, I recognise a familiar structure: sport as infrastructure, not as salvation. The organisers placed UTMB Race Director Johan Essl at the centre, meaning the event does not operate as a spontaneous local race but as an official node of the chain. With UTMB Group behind it, a mountain race in Rize immediately escapes a local identity and enters the international map.

Here I think of the transfer market. The transfer market is a chess game of numbers that know how to hide themselves. A club buys a player not only for goals, but because he sells shirts, draws crowds, represents a market. Trail running is the same. A country hosting a UTMB World Series event is not primarily seeking to develop champions — it is seeking to position a place.

Minister Osman Aşkın Bak says this outright. He compares the ambition of Rize and Ayder to Davos — the town synonymous with the World Economic Forum. He speaks of sports tourism as a significant national earner. He references national sports successes, the women's volleyball team, the 2027 European Games. Nowhere in his remarks does he name a single trail athlete.

That is not an oversight. That is strategy.

Lessons from Sa Pa, looking toward Kaçkar

Reading about Kaçkar, I cannot help comparing it with what I follow in Vietnam.

Vietnam Mountain Marathon in Sa Pa has existed for more than a decade, drawing thousands of international runners each year. The course runs through rice terraces, through H'Mông villages, past Fansipan — scenes any photographer dreams of capturing. Landscape-wise, Sa Pa rivals Ayder or Kaçkar. Organisationally, Vietnamese trail races have met international standards in many respects.

But there is a gap I want to name: system structure. Vietnam has many quality trail races, yet its position within a global franchise system like UTMB World Series remains undefined. That means a Vietnamese athlete wanting to accumulate Running Stones for Chamonix must still fly to other Asian races.

The Kaçkar story suggests a model Vietnamese organisers should study: a sports event can be a destination-positioning tool, and destination positioning requires an ecosystem, not just a course. DOKA plays the role of regional development investor. The provincial government secures infrastructure. National corporations sponsor as brand investment. Every link exists for reasons independent of a results table.

In Nha Trang, where I live and work, I often ask myself: if one day this city hosted a world-class coastal trail race, where would we begin? The answer is not in prize money. It is in building an organising apparatus capable of surviving multiple seasons.

The course never lies about what it does not tell

Here I must say something many will find counter-intuitive.

Kaçkar by UTMB not publishing individual results is a positive signal for this segment, not a negative one. It shows the event's value does not depend on performance. If a race's value comes only from records, it dies the moment a record falls and no one can break it. But if value comes from experience, from landscape, from an international community, it can live for decades.

The course never lies, only we have not been patient enough to listen. Here, the course is saying something different from what we are used to hearing: it speaks of tourism, of regional economics, of national positioning. Not of finish-line moments.

But I must also guard against that very optimism. Correlation is not causation. Two thousand athletes from sixty countries proves the pull of the UTMB brand, not the quality of the Kaçkar course. To judge a course, one needs split data, elevation profiles, per-distance records. None have appeared.

The blind spot called weather

And there is one fact the report records but seemingly nobody emphasised enough.

The Rize Governor recalls that in the first edition, Kaçkar was hidden by fog and rain. He mentions it as a memory, but I read it as a technical warning. The Eastern Black Sea mountain region is one of Turkey's rainiest. The 1,300-2,000 metre terrain around Ayder Plateau means temperatures drop sharply with altitude, and fog can appear without warning.

A trail event in this climate faces three operational risks simultaneously: fog destroying runners' visibility, heavy rain slickening rocky paths, and low temperatures causing hypothermia. With 2,000 people on course, each risk multiplies with scale.

The Minister mentions a detail I consider important: the trails have cameras for taking and sharing photos. This is a tracking and promotional measure, and also a safety tool. But when he says "ascents and trails are difficult", he touches the essence of the sport without developing it into analysis.

At the 70th minute, the crowd sees collapse; I see a structure being rebuilt. In trail, the "70th minute" corresponds to kilometre 60 of a 100km race — the point where the body shifts from burning glycogen to burning fat, where the decision lies in how many months of preparation preceded it. Without split data, no one knows who prepared correctly and who did not.

The silence of a results table

So what comes next?

Organisers need to publish elite start lists and finish results. That is the minimum condition for Kaçkar by UTMB to shift from a sports-tourism event into a genuine sporting event. Full distance categories must be disclosed — the report confirms only a 20 km course, whereas UTMB World Series events typically run multiple distances in parallel. Course records must be published. The Running Stones structure available to athletes must be clarified.

These things will elevate the event from a promotional campaign to an assessable system.

An empty stadium does not make me lonely, because data is the echo of thousands of people. But that echo must be recorded, published, placed side by side for comparison. When people ask why I am silent, I am reading the lines the field writes. At Kaçkar, those lines are not yet finished.

What I am certain of is this: the model Kaçkar by UTMB is creating — a coalition of state agencies, regional development bodies, a national airline and national brands — is a template worth learning from. Not because it is perfect, but because it acknowledges a truth: elite and mass sport can coexist within one event, provided organisers clearly understand what they are selling.

Here they are selling a region. And 2,000 athletes from 60 countries bought it.

The data story of this race begins only in its third season. When results are published, when course records are set, when elite athletes' names appear beside the name of the Kaçkar range — then we can begin to measure in earnest. For now, I record the figure 2,000 in my notebook, mark three months of follow-up, and wait.

I do not believe in luck; I believe in what has been repeated enough times. One season is not enough to conclude. Two seasons begin to form a trend. Three seasons create data.