[Editor’s Note: This article was written by guest columnist Clare Gunton.]
François D’Haene (France) is as soon as once more the lads’s supported quickest recognized time holder on Corsica’s GR20 path. On July 9, 2026, he reclaimed the report with a time of 29 hours, 46 minutes, and 20 seconds, enhancing on the time set in 2021 by France’s Lambert Santelli by simply over 40 minutes. Previous to Santelli, D’Haene had held the quickest recognized time (FKT) on the route since 2016 with a time of 31 hours and 6 minutes.
François D’Haene on his technique to setting a brand new FKT on the GR20 in Corsica. All images courtesy of François D’Haene.
The GR20 traverses Corsica, a mountainous French island within the Mediterranean Sea, diagonally from the northwest to the southeast. Also known as Europe’s hardest long-distance path, it’s recognized for its rugged and extremely technical terrain. The route is roughly 100 miles (160 kilometers) lengthy with about 40,000 toes (12,000 meters) of complete elevation acquire. After assembling his crew in Corsica and ready a couple of days for a great climate window, D’Haene began his journey from Calenzana at 4:30 a.m. on the morning of July 8 and completed in Conca at 10:16 a.m. the next day.
This was D’Haene’s third journey on the GR20. He first hiked it in 2006 along with his spouse in basic thru-hiking model earlier than setting his FKT in 2016. Since then, Santelli, a Corsican native, had been the one one to higher D’Haene’s report.
D’Haene traverses one of many many technical sections of the GR20 along with his pacer.
D’Haene is likely one of the most achieved path runners on the planet, significantly in mountainous 100-mile races. In 2021, he received the Arduous Rock 100setting the still-standing report for the counterclockwise course, and likewise received UTMB for the fourth time. He additionally completed second on the Western States 100 in 2018 and has received the Diagonal of Fools 4 occasions. D’Haene has additionally pursued different aggressive FKTs, holding the lads’s supported FKT on the 223-mile (360 kilometers) John Muir Path in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains since 2017. Final yr, he set the then males’s supported FKT on the roughly 100-mile (160 kilometers) Nolan’s 14 route in Colorado’s Sawatch mountains in 35 hours and 33 minutes, though the report has since been damaged by David Hedges.
Not like his Nolan’s 14 FKT journey final yr, throughout which he offered no public live-tracking or social media updates whereas it was occurring, D’Haene’s Instagram account stored his followers steadily up to date on his GR20 progress, offering high-quality imagery of him shifting by the gorgeous surroundings and passing by his crewed pit stops. His crew was composed of family and friends, together with his spouse and youngsters, and he appeared to have a number of pacers with him most, if not all, of the time. His kids even joined him as pacers for a couple of miles alongside the path. Corsica has been experiencing a warmth wave like many different components of Europe, and when the temperatures rose within the warmth of the day, he used bandanas and hats full of ice to maintain cool.
D’Haene endured the warmth on his crossing of the GR20 path.
The GR20 has just lately been named one of many Quickest Identified Time web site’s premier routes for Europe, for its wealthy aggressive historical past. The FKT continues to be pending official verification, however D’Haene’s route will be seen on his Strava account, although the kilometer splits are at present hidden. In an Instagram put up after securing the FKT, D’Haene wrote, “Ten years after my first report right here, 20 years after my very first ultra-trail again in 2006, and as I’m 40, realizing that I nonetheless have that deep starvation inside, that pure pleasure of taking up this path … that’s undoubtedly what issues most to me.”
Even at 40 years outdated, D’Haene nonetheless has the starvation for large efforts.
