Understanding the UTMB Index: What's Changing & Why It's Important?
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
4.8 • 866 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The UTMB Index and race scores have become increasingly significant in the global trail running ecosystem. The Index upstream of sponsorship and race entry opportunities for pros, it allows fans to gauge who is performing best on the world's stage, and it helps media members contextualize performances across years, distances, and different course terrains.
Today the UTMB Index is evolving in some subtle yet important ways. Joining me to talk all about it are Adrian Vincentand Karen Merlin — two members of the team who worked on this new system and are well qualified to explain how things are changing and what it means for the sport.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro + episode overview (UTMB Index)
00:50 – Guest introductions (Adrian Vincent & Karen Merlin)
02:50 – Why the UTMB Index was created
07:25 – Why the index matters for the sport
10:45 – Index vs. race scores explained
13:40 – What the index is (and isn't)
15:45 – Why changes were needed
19:40 – Gender scoring discussion
24:40 – Myth: bias toward UTMB races
26:15 – Challenge of collecting global race results
30:55 – Myth: weather/conditions affect scores
37:15 – New scoring system overview
39:25 – Step 1: Finding similar races
42:40 – Step 2: Expected score + confidence
47:45 – Step 3: Selecting high-quality data
51:20 – Step 4: Final calculation (regression explained)
55:05 – Retroactive re-scoring (what changes)
56:10 – Impact on everyday runners
57:10 – Impact on elite athletes + qualification
58:55 – Myth: bad races hurt your index
01:00:55 – Highest scores ever (new system)
01:06:10 – Behind the scenes of the rebuild
01:09:00 – Transparency + final thoughts
01:10:30 – Closing remarks
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I'm your loving host, Dylan Bowman here today with a newsy episode to discuss the UTMB index and important changes to the |
| 0:22.9 | race scoring and athlete ranking system that are being announced today. The UTMB index has been |
| 0:28.6 | an increasingly hot topic in the sport. Athletes are increasingly measured by this metric. |
| 0:34.4 | It is upstream of a lot of sponsorship and race opportunities for the pros. |
| 0:39.9 | It allows fans to get a sense of who's performing best on the world stage. It also helps |
| 0:45.1 | those of us in the media to contextualize performances across years, across distances, |
| 0:50.6 | and across different course terrain. And I guess the bottom line is that, yeah, |
| 0:55.2 | it's just become a lot more significant in the global conversation, which of course means it |
| 0:59.9 | has not been without some different disagreement and often even some controversy. And that's |
| 1:05.5 | what we're here to talk about because, as I said at the top, things are changing in some subtle |
| 1:10.1 | but important ways. |
| 1:11.3 | And I'm glad to have two representatives from the UT&B organization who were willing to come |
| 1:16.0 | on the podcast and talk all about it. Joining me are Adrian Vincent and Karen Merlin, who were |
| 1:21.5 | part of the team who worked on this new system and who are therefore well qualified and well |
| 1:26.7 | equipped to explain how things are changing and what it means for you and for the sport in general. |
| 1:32.3 | We broke the show up into three parts, first setting some historical context for the index, how it started and the split from Mitra. |
| 1:40.3 | Then we moved to some clarification, confronting some common perceptions and some common criticisms of the way |
| 1:46.7 | the index works. |
| 1:48.0 | And after setting all that context, we move to the new system, touching on how it works practically |
| 1:53.7 | from a high level, what's staying the same and what's different. |
| 1:57.4 | A couple important notes before we start. |
| 1:59.5 | First, as you're listening to this, |
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