The Ultra Trail Cape Town is one of the most legendary trailrunning events in the world: South Africa, Cape Town, Table Mountain, brutal cut-off times in the past, the world’s elite in the starting field – and unfortunately also muggings in 2023, which are hardly surprising in a socially still very unequal local society. Now, 2024 marks the 10th edition of the UTCT. Race Director Stuart McConnachie gives us a look far behind the scenes of the event.
The Ultra Trail Cape Town (UTCT) is celebrating its 10th edition this year and you’ve been in from the beginning on. How do you feel?
It’s quite surreal. It does in many ways feels like the first one was just the other day. I am still seeing all the work going in… and it’s great to be able to look back on 10 years. It feels like our dreams are just becoming reality. The plan was always to put the race on the international calendar instead of having only a local race.
Will UTCT 2024 differ in any way from 2023 because of the anniversary?
We will definitely pay homage to the anniversary. There will be a history wall on the race with past winners and competitors, comments, and additional stuff that we want to bring in via social media. We’ve created a little badge which will go with the merchandise, the race shirts, and everything like this. There will be a build-up towards the race as well.
Is there a memory that stands out when thinking back?
I’ve got plenty of good memories as well as hard memories. In the first year, for example, we had such a pressure as we had never done such an event before. We ran so much out of time that we ended up marking the route the same day as the event. We were just dead – no energy left. We barely managed it over the line.
In contrast, 2019 was a huge year for us. It was our 2nd year on the Ultra Trail World Tour, runners like François D’Haene were running. The Top Ten in the 100k was a strong field from all over the world. We felt like we had arrived. Little did we know that 6 months later we’d be in the middle of a pandemic. But that’s a different story. Watching that race unfold and seeing the depth of competition was just amazing. After all the years adding up to this it was very rewarding to see it all coming together.
Do you remember how many runners started in 2014?
It was 356 in total, I think. In the 100k we had 36 runners and 17 finishing in the cut-off time of 15 hours.
That really was a brutal cut-off time anyways.
Yes, it was brutal. It’s part of our history as the race is held in the National Park. And they initially said we cannot run at night. So we went for it – with the first two editions having a cut-off at 15 hours. As we moved the date, the park allowed us 2 hours more due to more daylight. So it was 17 hours. After COVID we were allowed 24 hours.
It was hard sometimes as we had to cut off people at 10am in the morning at Constantia Nek and reroute them to the 65k run. There were some disappointed people. Only the top 30% made it in time to the finish line.
When talking about the Ultra Trail Cape Town, words that often come up are „integrity“, „values“, and „community“. What do these mean for the event and the team?
This is very humbling to hear. Right from the beginning we wanted to be part of the community. We wanted to understand what’s happening on the ground – not being organizers who see the runners to be below them. We initiated “Tuesday Trails” at the same time which is a big running community here now. It is a great source of connection.
We are very lucky that Cape Town is a big city which has a big mountain in the middle of it. You can easily escape city life there. During the event it allows us to smoothly tap into the community around us. We have over 600 volunteers at the race. There wouldn’t be a race without them. Everybody kind of nurtures the race and we are all very proud of it. We want international runners to come and be a part of the experience.
There is almost a personality behind the race – and that is how welcoming the community is to people from outside. It’s part of our local identity as well. If we have visitors coming all the way down to South Africa, we want them to have a good time. So, if people take away these experiences and values – it is a great honor for us.
What makes the local runnning community so special?
If you look at trailrunning around the world in general, it’s everywhere quite special. It’s a sport where we are all competing – but eventually you are most of the time competing against yourself. And you need the people around you to support you, to create events, to look after each other e.g. in the mountains.
In terms of being welcoming and being authentic and real, this resonates a lot with us personally. We’ve all been in these situations when you arrive somewhere and you don’t know anyone. We want to create an inclusive space where nobody is left outside.
UTCT is part of the newly formed World Trail Majors. Did becoming a part of the World Trail Majors affect the event in any way already?
We’re excited to be a part of it. It’s a group of races that stand for specific values and support each other. We all know how the sport and its landscape are changing. We all know each other quite well from the Ultra Trail World Tour and we share our wish to be independent and still to support each other.
I think the real value behind will become visible over time. It’s by no means a finished article as the series is still learning. We want the World Trail Majors to support races, not dominate races.
Hearing this, the elephant in the room is now of course the UTMB. Do you think the Ultra Trail Cape Town could still remain true to itself under the umbrella of UTMB?
It would be a lot harder. I guess it comes with the way their races are managed. You have to give up quite a lot to be a part of it. It’s kind of a pyramid that works up to the central event of UTMB. We all know the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc to be a great event but I personally don’t like the way the system is set up. Therefore, I think it would be very hard to uphold our sense of community engagement. We would face challenges from our community as well to stand by our core believes.
With UTCT turning 10, Ultra Trail Drakensberg – supported by you as well – gaining traction, or the Mountain Ultra Trail being now part of UTMB: Is South Africa eventually positioning itself as a force on the map of international trailrunning?
When we started UTCT we looked closely at what Cape Epic, the mountain bike race, had done. Following that path of a local race with international appeal was always our vision. To attract international runners you need to provide something.
The difference to Ultra Trail Drakensberg are quite stark as it is some kind of a journey to get there. You need an additional flight from Cape Town and then continue via car. But the mountains there belong to the best trailrunning destinations I have been to so far. I think, Cape Town will continue to be the place where people come to first as it was the early adopter, is easily accessible and offers so much to do outside of running. Once people experienced that they might come back to experience something else and get to Drakensberg.
Since 2023, there’s a dark cloud connected to the UTCT as Tom Evans was robbed at knife-point during a pre-run in the area of Table mountain. At least three competitors and a trail marshal were mugged during the race. Do runners have to worry when running the Ultra Trail Cape Town?
There is a certain socio-economic situation in and around South Africa. What kind of caught us was that the muggings happened in areas of the mountain that were accessible and easy for the people to get off the mountain to quickly disappear in the city. It was very tough to deal with this situation – even more so with a high-profile person like Tom. What happened with him was an unfortunate incident. We’re by no means saying it didn’t happen before and won’t happen again. And he was warned not to go to certain areas at certain times.
The muggings appear a bit like in waves. They happen more and then disappear again. People who are committing these things are in dire need. If they see a weakness, they move in. Beginning of summer is always a classic time with an influx of tourists who are more vulnerable as they are unaware of certain situations. All we can do is to educate and work with the authorities to make sure these situations most likely will not happen again. The city, the province and a lot of invested people do their best to prevent this from happening again.
The three guys who’ve been mugged during the race – which was the 100 miler – were way down in the south of the peninsula. We diverted the route away from the area where it happened. It was a weak point for us as well.
As sad as the incident was, it shone a bright light on the mountain being our playground and our need to be save there. The authorities need to put measures into place to support us. They cannot just put it into our hands as organizers of the race. We all need the help to fix the socio-economic problem that lies at the root of the crime.
Is there anything runners can do from their ends? Especially with ultra races it just happens that you run alone and are therefore a potential victim.
As a local community, we mostly run together and especially women don’t run alone. As a group you are always far more safe.
During the race, I would like to believe that you’ll be fine. Still, if you are approached, your cellphone and your watch are just things. They are nothing to fight back for. You don’t really need them – they can be replaced. So hand over the goods, like the three guys at the 100 miler – a British and two local guys – did. They got to the next aid station and spoke to us. We told them to continue to the next aid stations and within 45 minutes we had organized three entire kits with vests, bottles, everything ready to go. All coming from the community. And all three of them finished their race. As long as you are safe and sound – it’s not worth fighting back.
For runners from e.g. Europe: How should they arrange their stay to make the most of the experience?
I would definitely look at our trail running groups. They run all over the peninsula which covers the Table Mountain chain. They run on different days and times and are easy to find via e.g. Instagram. We can send you the links as well if you contact the race office. Connecting to them will be the best way to experience the area.
As soon as you run with the first group people will approach you about where and when they’ll run next and invite you to it. Everyone connects to everyone. They’ll show you the best places and give you the feeling of being looked after. Especially around the race, everyone knows people are coming to Cape Town to run. It makes the time around the event very special. You won’t feel like a tourist but like a local.
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