Second edition of Kaçkar by UTMB: Minister Osman Aşkın Bak fires the start gun as 2,000 athletes from 60 countries race in Ayder

Turkey's Minister of Youth and Sports, Osman Aşkın Bak, personally fired the start gun for the second edition of Kaçkar by UTMB, an ultra-trail event within the UTMB World Series, held on the Ayder Plateau in Rize province, in Turkey's Eastern Black Sea region. According to a report by the Anadolu Ajansı news agency, the race gathered around 2,000 athletes from 60 countries. It is a sports-tourism event with a clear political imprint: competitive performance information is almost entirely absent, while information about organisation, branding and destination positioning is dense.

A political-tourism report, not a performance report

The Anadolu Ajansı report covers the start ceremony and officials' statements, not the racing itself. The source contains no winner's name, no finish times, no split data, no course records and no individual performance figures of any kind. This is not a gap on the reader's side but the nature of the genre: political and tourism-promotion news emphasises the existence and scale of an event while leaving competitive quality blank.

Consequently, any judgement about the competitive standard of Kaçkar by UTMB must be filed under “insufficient information to assess”. Trail-running fans can note that the event exists, is expanding and has genuine international appeal — but cannot conclude where it stands relative to other UTMB World Series stops.

UTMB World Series: a commercial ecosystem parallel to the Olympic system

Kaçkar by UTMB does not sit inside a World Athletics-governed structure and is not a world-ranking points event. It is a stop in the UTMB World Series, the international trail circuit run by the UTMB brand (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, based in Chamonix, France), and its entry logic differs completely from traditional road athletics.

Rather than using qualifying time standards as major marathons do, the UTMB World Series uses “Running Stones” — points earned at qualifying races — combined with a lottery to allocate places for the UTMB Mont-Blanc finals. The question of whether an athlete has “met the standard” is therefore meaningless here. Notably, the presence of Race Director Johan Essl signals that the central UTMB brand is directly involved in delivery, not merely licensing its name to a self-run local race.

Scale and course structure: thin published data

The only verifiable figures are the event's scale: roughly 2,000 athletes, from 60 countries, in the second edition. A 20 km course is confirmed indirectly, as officials and reporters completed that distance. Given the typical structure of UTMB World Series races, Kaçkar by UTMB almost certainly offers additional distance categories (often from 20 km up to several hundred kilometres), but the full distance menu is not stated. That is a significant information gap, because the distance menu determines which audiences the event actually serves.

Geographically, the Kaçkar range and the Ayder Plateau sit at roughly 1,300–2,000 metres or higher, meaning mountain terrain and altitude materially affect difficulty. However, the report provides no course profile, no cumulative elevation gain and no cut-off times. Minister Osman Aşkın Bak only described the climbs and trails as “difficult”, a qualitative remark.

Why performance cannot be assessed at Kaçkar by UTMB

Trail running has no ratified world records as road athletics does, because every course has its own terrain, altitude and weather. The sporting standard of a trail race can therefore be measured only through two yardsticks: course records and elite-field depth. The Anadolu Ajansı report supplies neither. No course record is mentioned, and no elite athlete is named as a contender.

Any claim about the event's “sporting calibre” is thus speculation. The Minister's statement that ultra marathon runners are “world-class athletes with followers worldwide” is rhetorical framing, not evidence about the specific field racing in Ayder.

Athlete condition: individual data entirely missing

No athlete is presented with a personal best, a season's best, an injury record or training context. The only individuals named as runners are figures from Anadolu Ajansı and the Anadolu Sports Association (AASK), namely Yusuf Özhan and Hasan Hüseyin Kul, who took part over the 20 km course. These are participation facts, not performance indicators, and cannot support any inference about the event's level.

In other words, athlete-condition analysis at Kaçkar by UTMB stops at “insufficient information”. Any attempt to profile the elite field would require inventing data, which contradicts the principle of verifiable information.

Organisational structure: a state-corporate coalition

The most notable element of the report is its organisational structure. The event involves the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency, the Rize Governorship and DOKA (the Eastern Black Sea Development Agency). On the corporate side, sponsors include Turkish Airlines, TOGG, Turkcell and Maxis — all leading national brands. This combination shows Kaçkar by UTMB is co-governed as a state-backed tourism vehicle rather than a purely federation-run competition.

The involvement of DOKA is especially telling: it is a regional development body, implying public money serves as the event's economic anchor. This model brings resource and communications advantages, but it also makes the race's continuity dependent on budget cycles and political will.

National positioning: the Davos analogy

Minister Osman Aşkın Bak offered a strategic comparison: Turkey wants to associate Ayder and Rize with major organisations, much as Davos is associated with economic forums. He also stressed that sports tourism delivers significant earnings to the country. This is a pivotal statement, showing the goal is place-branding through sport rather than medal production.

The event's political context is equally visible: the presence of the region associated with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the participation of AK Party MPs, and references to the national women's volleyball team's 2026 successes and the 2027 European Games. All of this frames a sports story inside a political, diplomatic and tourism narrative.

Rules and anti-doping: no dispute signals

The report raises no dispute over competition rules, eligibility, equipment or anti-doping. The detail that “all trails have cameras for taking and sharing photos”, mentioned by the Minister, is a safety, tracking and promotional feature, not a rules matter. Core trail-running regulations — mandatory kit, cut-offs, medical checks — are implied but not reported in detail.

On doping, a mass-participation trail event carries substantially lower exposure than road record attempts. Testing of podium finishers, if any, is typically governed by national or UTMB policy and cannot be verified from this source. The accurate statement is that there is no risk signal — and equally no reassurance in the opposite direction.

The biggest risk: Black Sea mountain weather

The most prominent operational risk is acknowledged by local officials themselves. The Governor of Rize recalled that in the first edition, the Kaçkar range was hidden by fog and rain. For an event whose communications value is tied to scenery — the Minister said “the images broadcast from here will be very beautiful” — bad weather threatens not only safety but the promotional purpose directly. The Black Sea mountain climate, with rain and fog, is a medium-probability, high-impact risk requiring course alternates, cut-offs and event insurance.

Two secondary risks deserve monitoring: dependence on public budgets (Ministry, DOKA, provincial government) and the gap between promotion and competitive substance. Doping, eligibility and competitive-fraud risks are essentially absent from the source.

Industry transmission: tourism is the product, not results

Along the sports-industry transmission chain, the inputs for Kaçkar by UTMB are local hosting capacity plus the UTMB brand licence; the outputs are not competitive value but tourism, promotion and destination-brand value. A sponsor roster made entirely of national champion brands indicates a state-corporate image-positioning coalition, and the most plausible economic transmission mechanism is aviation-linked tourism, given Turkish Airlines' sponsorship.

At ecosystem level, trail running is characterised by the near-hegemonic brand dominance of the UTMB Group. Kaçkar by UTMB is a franchised node within that system, not an independent power. Turkey hosting a stop on this circuit reflects a broader trend of using international trail events to build a sports-tourism identity rather than to develop elite trail talent.

Conclusion and signals to watch

Kaçkar by UTMB is an event of genuine international scale (2,000 athletes, 60 countries) but of very low competitive-information value: no results, no elite names, no marks. Its value lies in industry and communications terms — a textbook example of state-led “sport as destination marketing”.

Four signals merit continued tracking: publication of elite start lists and results (which would raise sporting credibility); the full distance menu and course records (a prerequisite for genuine performance analysis); sponsorship renewals for a third edition (a commercial durability indicator); and race-day weather (a direct driver of image and economics). On current evidence, the most reasonable conclusion is that Kaçkar by UTMB is in a brand-building phase, and any judgement of its competitive standard should be deferred until results are published.