On 27 June 2026, Vincent Bouillard crossed the line on the Placer High School track and stopped the clock at 13:46:15. The time cut an awe-inspiring 23 minutes from the previous course record of 14:09:23, set by Jim Walmsley in 2019. He is the first French winner of the Western States 100. He builds shoe foam for a living. On this day he ran in a one-off prototype shaped around his own stride.
A race decided in the last ten miles
The men set off fast. Cooler temperatures allowed more aggressive pacing, with no one certain how fast the course could run without heat holding everyone in check. The top eighteen came through the Escarpment, 3.5 miles and 2,200 feet above the start, within a single minute of one another. Hans Troyer led the charge over the high point and broke clear by Lyon Ridge, using the descent into Duncan Canyon to put almost three minutes on the chasing group of Francesco Puppi, Walmsley and Bouillard.
Troyer pushed his lead to six minutes through Last Chance and came over Devil's Thumb a full 26 minutes ahead of the record. The advantage did not hold. By Peachstone, midway through the Cal Street section at mile 71, Puppi had moved into the lead. Through all of it, Bouillard ran his own effort. He had been a constant presence behind the leaders from the start, and by mile 78 at Rucky Chucky he sat five minutes behind Puppi; by mile 85.2 the gap was a mere 90 seconds.
Bouillard made his winning move coming into Quarry Road, ten miles from the finish, passing Puppi to take a two-minute lead. From there the race was his, and he crossed the line to cement the new record. Puppi held second in 13:51:08; Ryan Montgomery took third in 13:53:55.
"I wanted to try and be a little more conservative. I was really trying to focus on my own effort. We pushed each other really well. I didn't have a strategy to pass him at mile 90."
Bouillard said this after the finish, alluding to the inexperience that had cost him a year earlier.
The engineer who kept coming back
The trajectory reads as a straight line only in hindsight. Bouillard won the 2024 UTMB as a complete outsider, racing without a sponsor while working as a product and innovation engineer for the brand that now backs him; the result was treated as a surprise at the time. Saturday's was not. He had failed to finish here in 2025, his rookie attempt at the distance, and the 2026 run answered any lingering questions.
He designs the ground beneath other runners. This time he stood on it first.
