Should trail running be an Olympic sport?

Did you know that off-road running was part of three historic summer Olympic Games, including the 1924 Olympics in Paris? One hundred years on, runners from four different clubs in Britain have come together to launch a campaign to bring trail running (as we now call it) back to the Olympics. The next Games to include new sports is Brisbane 2032, and the group of passionate trail runners feel strongly that trail running deserves a spot.

“At Paris 2024, four new sports are being added that include breakdancing, surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing,” runner Jimi Harrison said in an interview with British media outlet The Star. “We feel that new Olympic sports should reflect the trends and popularity of the current day and believe the time has come for trail running to be adopted at future Olympics.”

To raise awareness for the cause, Harrison and the group ran a relay of more than 455 km, from London to Paris. Their feat ended on Sunday in the French capital.

Backed by running shoe brand Merrell, the group are calling on Olympic decision-makers. They have written an open letter to representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Trail Running Association (ITRA) to support their cause. (Merrell recently signed Olympian Alexi Pappas to its athlete roster. Pappas, who raced the 10,000m at Rio in 2016, setting a national record for Greece, ran two big trail ultras in 2023: the Black Canyon 100K and the Leadville 100.)

Some would argue that cross-country running is a more obvious fit for inclusion in the Olympics. With shorter, looped, spectator-friendly courses, cross-country could be more attractive to broadcasters, thus generating more interest. And cross-country usually features track runners. There is less crossover between track and trail running, though it’s not unheard of for track runners to transition to trails, as we have seen.

This is not the first attempt to bring trail running to the Olympics. In 2021, a trail running company from Spain launched its own campaign to bring it to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. (They were not successful.)

Trail running has increased significantly in popularity in recent years, thanks partly to events like the Barkley Marathons, UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc) and the Golden Trail Series, which make international news headlines.

posted Thursday April 18th
by Claire Haines