Zach Miller's feet tremble in a shady spot in Maspalomas under a thermal blanket.
Half an hour curled up while he smiles and waves, without asking for medical assistance, without anyone being surprised: it is almost an ordinary scene, the price for running 126 kilometers through the mountains.
The great favorite, second last year in the Ultra Trail of Mont Blanc – UTMB, the queen of ultra-distance – has given up, but finishing seventh is no excuse for not sprinting when he crosses the finish line.
The American, a revolutionary who spends every career with the knife, leaves in a wheelchair after spending one of his three bullets of the year in the Transgrancanaria, a choice that is not trivial, as it reflects his critical voice towards UTMB, which he accuses monopoly and which will not attend this year.
Miller, The North Face athlete, was one of the big stars of the event that crosses Gran Canaria from north to south, taking advantage of the fact that his brand is the main sponsor of the event, with prizes of up to 5,000 euros for the winner.
He fell due to injury to Jim Walmsley, the compatriot who surpassed him in the UTMB when he had already seen the lead emerge.
“I'm very happy with my performance, I didn't have any big downturns.”
Perhaps the best version of his life.
“It's hard to compare, but it was one of the best.”
However, he won't be in Chamonix this time to try again.
“I have an open mind, it doesn't mean I won't come back, but there has to be changes.”
Both he and Kilian Jornet have held conversations with the UTMB organizers to express their discontent.
“I would like them to be more aware of their impact on the sport.”
He asks to include in the classification system races that are not owned by UTMB – a mandatory procedure – in search of sharing the cake.
“I don't know if their goal is to be a monopoly, but they have recently taken a lot of steps in that direction.”
The incorporation of Ironman or the devaluation of other events due to the magnet that Chamonix represents for athletes, given priority by their brands for performing there.
“They are promoting the professionalization of sport, but if they are not fair, it is dangerous.”
He defends a “respectful” system with the careers that already exist: “Working together instead of wanting to run the show.”
Both shared their ideas with other athletes, with their presence as an element of pressure.
Zach Miller, in action.
Ian Corless
That presence took him to the Las Canteras beach in Las Palmas to start his odyssey at 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
Between fine rain and sand, 931 Cinderellas left for a terrible night.
“We have spent six or seven hours with rain and brutal gusts of wind.
The thermal sensation was below zero,” explains the winner, Raul Butaci, who completed a route with 6,800 meters of positive gradient in 13h,22m,32s.
From the cold in the north to the sun of justice in the south.
So many kilometers for a script that is resolved in 10, the last big climb, between Tejeda and Roque Nublo, in which Miguel Heras, rejuvenating his 48 years with each stride, approaches him by seconds, but does not catch him.
The leader looks to the left again and again with the clouds at his feet and knows that there are still 38 kilometers left.
“I was thinking until the end that he was going to beat me.”
But Butaci, a Romanian as Catalan as the botifarra, flies in the favorable section and ten minutes pass until the Bejarano arrives, faithful to his customs, to his ham sandwich at the aid station while his rivals finish the gels.
“Dreams come true very rarely, you never quite believe that you are going to win one of these races,” confesses the winner.
La Trasgrancaria, with six distances spread over five days and about 4,000 registered participants – half of them foreigners – leads the World Trade Majors, a young circuit that replicates UTMB with a democratic structure: nine events that share ownership, with their own organization and Turismo de Gran Canaria as global sponsor.
Butaci agrees “in many things” with Miller and Jornet.
“UTMB is taking advantage of runners;
all the prestige it has is because of them.”
But he defends a pyramidal system, although power is more shared.
“There has to be a circuit that is like the Champions League final.
Let it really be known who the best runner is.
Nowadays, you don't know.
Now it is UTMB, but it would be nice if a circuit were created based on federations.”
Raul Butaci, winner of the race in Gran Canaria.Jordi Saragossa
While Butaci hurries his words, almost two hours after pressing the stop button on his legs, Courtney Dauwalter arrives, the best distance runner in history, winner last year of the three most prestigious hundred-mile races in the world in just two months.
The American who fell in love with Gran Canaria last February and kept her promise to return every year.
She takes almost half an hour more (15h, 14m, 54s), with that fatigue that magnifies her figure, she undoes her steps to appreciate each step of the batucada that she dances in circles around her.
An island, with its mountains, surrendered to her exhausted feet.
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