Trail people. Welcome to the Free Trail podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Dylan Bowman, here with a bit of a bonus

slash emergency episode to help announce the World Trail Majors, a brand new race series starting in

2024. The World Trail Majors is a collection of nine awesome independent races all over the world

who are coming together to give runners an alternative collection of

events to enjoy with an authentic, local, and independent spirit from the official press release.

They say, the World Trail Majors was not born with the intention of confrontation or of

solving all the problems of this fast developing sport, but rather to provide a new alternative

path of development which aims to be inspirational to all runners and organizers.

Trail slash Ultra Racing is a sport that takes place in the natural outdoor environment

with uncomplicated rules and free from the limitations inherent in many sports.

World Trail Majors wants to build on this open and accessible ethos to help preserve the original

values of the sport involving local organizations, respecting local communities, and boosting

local economies. The races must leave little trace on nature, but lifelong impacts on the runners.

Joining me today are four of the race directors from the founding consortium of events,

the great Jamel Curry from the Black Canyon 100K, Stu McConaughey from Ultra Trail Cape Town,

and Janet Ng and Steve Brammer from the Hong Kong 100.

We discussed the founding vision for the World Trail majors, the values on which the group was built,

the structure and economics of the series, and the future roadmap of the group.

Needless to say, there's been a lot of big news in the support in recent weeks.

I'm far from a journalist,

so I feel a little self-conscious about my role recently. But at the end of the day, we just try

to be unifiers and optimists. So this episode was recorded in that spirit. I hope it helps.

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