The course had already been torn apart by rain and landslides when Yngvild Kaspersen began to move. At the halfway point in Champex-Lac, the Norwegian sat outside the top ten, nearly 20 minutes behind the leader. By the finish in Chamonix, she had run down every woman ahead of her.
A twenty-minute deficit erased in mud
The 2026 CCC was a race shaped by poor conditions. Heavy rain turned the trails to mud, and three separate reroutes stretched the course to 108 kilometers with 6,200 meters of climbing. Kaspersen fell back early, reaching the 54-kilometer mark far from contention as China's Miao Yao set the pace.
Then the comeback began. By Trient at kilometer 79, Kaspersen had clawed her way to third place and cut the gap to Yao to just 11 minutes. At Vallorcine, with 90 kilometers gone, she was the fastest woman on the course and only four and a half minutes back.
Ten titles, one first
The race was always going to crown a champion with history. The women's field contained three previous CCC winners — 2018 victor Yao, 2024 winner Toni McCann, and Kaspersen herself from 2023 — all chasing the first two-time title. In the closing kilometers, McCann moved past Yao, and then Kaspersen passed them both.
She pulled away over the final stretch, finishing in 12:01:14. McCann followed in 12:06:14, and Yao held on for third in 12:15:41. The podium was made entirely of CCC champions.
The long way back
Kaspersen's return to the top step required more than a single race's patience. She had dropped out of the 2025 CCC and did not finish the Western States 100 earlier in 2026, stepping away with less than ten miles remaining. This victory, on a rerouted and rain-soaked course, joins her 2023 title.
She becomes the first woman to win the CCC twice. Only one other athlete, American Hayden Hawks, has managed the feat on the men's side. The win also secured a Golden Ticket entry to the Western States 100 for the following year, though that detail landed softly beside the bigger milestone already written into the record books.
