Two Vietnamese runners complete the 330km Tor des Géants ultra-trail

Night in Courmayeur was around ten degrees Celsius. Floodlights marked the finish line like a small ribbon in the Aosta Valley. Lưu Đức Toản emerged from the darkness, slow but steady. The clock read 137 hours 50 minutes. About fifty minutes later, Lê Thị Hằng crossed the same line, with 138 hours 40 minutes. No loud cheers, no crowd of reporters. Only tired volunteers smiling and an electronic board quietly recording two Vietnamese names among the finishers of the Tor des Géants.

Let me pause for a moment about their names, because in any sport, a person's name is the first door to respect. Lê Thị Hằng – "Hằng" rhymes with "moon" – is a female runner from Vũng Tàu. Lưu Đức Toản – "Toản" rhymes with "oản" – has conquered numerous international ultra-trails. They are not unknown names in Vietnam's running community, but in Courmayeur they were simply two of the "survivors" of a brutal race.

The Tor des Géants – "Tower of the Giants" – is nothing like a typical road race. It is a 330km journey through the Aosta Valley, between Italy and France, with no stages and no mandatory rest hours. Runners decide when to run, eat and sleep. Total cumulative elevation gain is over 24,000m – nearly three times the height of Everest – across more than twenty passes above 2,000m. The cutoff is 150 hours. The completion rate is around 60%, meaning two out of five starters drop out. For me, after ten years following endurance events, 24,000m is the figure that makes me pause: it is not a dry statistic, but a story of legs climbing and descending cliff faces dozens of times.

In that story, two Vietnamese chose a relentless challenge. Hằng brought a resume that included Prenn Trail 250km, Son La Ultra Trail 100km and Vietnam Mountain Marathon 100km. Toản finished UTMB – one of the world's most prestigious ultra-trails – along with Mantra 116km in Thailand, ULJU Trail 9 Peaks 100km in South Korea and Mt Fuji 100km in Japan. They are not reckless beginners. They are people who built a multi-year path toward the 330km milestone.

But careful preparation does not mean absolute safety. Toản described narrow paths along cliff edges, one side a deep abyss, without safety ropes. He said the Tor des Géants is "many times harder" than UTMB – a technical verdict from someone who has done both. In 2026, the race recorded a death: a runner slipped, fell and hit his head. I mention this not to dramatize, but to remind that this is a sport where the line between finishing and tragedy is one footstep away.

So how should their results be read? The numbers below tell the story. The 2026 men's champion, Jia Ju Zhao of China, finished in 65:55:22. The women's champion, Katharina Hartmuth of Germany, in 67:10:09. Toản's 137:50 and Hằng's 138:40 are more than double those times. They were not in the lead pack. They were among the mid-pack finishers – people who conquered themselves, not the race. Yet "merely" finishing mid-pack in a race where nearly 40% of starters fail is still a remarkable result.

What catches the eye is the time gap between Hằng and Toản – less than one hour after 330km. In ultra-distance racing, a 50-minute gap between a female and male runner is very tight. It hints at something unconfirmed: they may have helped each other, shared the pace, crossed cold passes together at night. Without checkpoint data, I cannot confirm. But that closeness, in a sport that often pushes people into solitude, is a detail worth attention.

I also want to focus on the 11-12 hour margin against the 150-hour cutoff. Comfortable enough to avoid disqualification, but not generous enough for a major mistake. A long stop due to cramps, a wrong turn in the dark, a mild case of hypothermia at 2,500m – any of these could have pushed them toward the cutting line. Their finish margin reveals solid pace management, but also that certainty is never guaranteed on this terrain.

Their story should not be trapped in the word "conquest." There is a subtle trap: when a Vietnamese athlete completes a brutal race, people cheer as if they have beaten the world. The real value is more humble: they finished, with an unannounced ranking, in a race that most of the world ignored. I used to think I was there to commentate the match; it turned out I was there to listen to people. And listening carefully, I hear something more important than rankings: the resilience of a Vietnamese sports ecosystem growing silently.

The proof is in the athletes' resumes. Prenn Trail 250km, Son La Ultra Trail, Vietnam Mountain Marathon – familiar names for Vietnamese runners – are the ladder that led them to the Tor des Géants. An athlete does not appear out of nowhere. They are products of a community that organized races long and hard enough to nurture ambition. The real trophy of that night was not a title, but a confirmation: the road from races around Núi Cốc Lake to the Alps is no longer a fantasy.

One more detail: of the three Vietnamese starters this year, one – now based in France – could not finish. That person lacked no talent. It is simply that, in a place like the Tor des Géants, even those who train in the Alps year-round can break down. The competition is not about the country you come from; it is about whether you can stay calm on the second and third night when your body is exhausted and the passes seem never-ending.

So, let the numbers speak. Records are just excuses for us to remember a person, not a number. There is something more durable than trophies: how people remember the way you played. Hằng and Toản will not be remembered for 137:50 or 138:40. They will be remembered for staying when the lights came on – when many had stopped, when their bodies said "enough," they kept going. Vietnamese sports do not need to be saved; it only needs people who stay when the lights come on. They are those people.

The remaining question is not where they ranked. It is: when will the next generation of Vietnam not just finish, but show up at the front? When training systems and sponsorship grow large enough, when children grow up with trail shoes and the story of two Vietnamese in the Alps – that will be when the real story begins.