How and When Will Trail Running Become an Olympic Sport?

Anna Gibson and Cam Smith each admitted they had to pinch themselves just to make sure her Olympic dream was real.

Just after earning the opportunity to represent the U.S. in ski mountaineering in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy as the sport makes its Olympic debut, Gibson and Smith, both world-class trail runners, were still a bit stunned by how it all happened. While the movement to add the sport to the Winter Olympics started more than a decade ago, the American duo that will compete in the ski-mo mixed relay race on February 21 in Bormio only realized their Olympic dream on December 6.

“I don’t know if that will ever fully sink in,” Gibson said with a laugh. 

“It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around what it all means, but yeah, life has changed for sure,” Smith added.  

With ski-mo’s Olympic debut just weeks away, Smith and Gibson are both in Italy putting in some final training for their race. As the world awaits for the sport to launch on the global stage, it’s a good time to think about trail running having its own Olympic coming-out party in the near future.

Trail Running: An Olympic Debut or Reintroduction?

While trail running is not yet locked in for the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane, Australia, it’s officially been shortlisted for consideration and the possibility for inclusion seems to be gaining momentum. The Trail Running 2032 campaign, which was launched three years ago as an initiative of the Australian Trail Runners Association, has been working with World Athletics, the international governing body of competitive running, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to get trail running into the 2032 Games.

The success of the combined World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in 2022, 2023, and 2025—an event co-organized by World Athletics, the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA), the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU), and the International Trail Running Association (ITRA)—has helped raise the profile of all disciplines of trail running on a global scale and encouraged more national federations to recognize and support the sport. Last year, 73 countries from five continents competed in the world championships in Spain—up from 46 in 2022 in Thailand and 58 in 2023 in Austria.

Gibson, who earned a bronze medal in the 6K uphill race and placed 13th in the 14K classic mountain race, is invigorated by the idea of racing on trails in the Olympics. 

“It does seem kind of ironic to me actually that skimo got added before trail running because to me trail running is the most natural sport that you can do. There’s not much equipment needed, and humans have been running in the mountains forever,” Gibson said. “Right now it feels like it’s mostly just rumors, so I’m waiting to get really excited about trail running being officially added. I think it would be incredible and definitely an opportunity that I hope that I get to shoot for in a couple years. It still seems far down the line—I mean, six years from now feels like forever—but it’s really something I’m excited about because the sport feels like it’s grown to the point where it should be included.”

Technically trail running’s inclusion in the Olympics would be a re-introduction for off-road running, given that cross country running was an individual and team medal sport in the three Olympics held from 1912 to 1924. Cross country was dropped after 1924 due to the extremely hot conditions and air pollution athletes experienced at the 1924 Games in Paris, but a movement to get cross country into the Winter Olympics has been growing for decades.

Among the primary proponents is World Athletics president Seb Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist on the track in the 1500-meter run. Six years ago, Coe and World Athletics pushed for cross country to be included in the 2024 Olympics, but the IOC rejected that proposal.

Coe has since aligned with David Lappartient, the president of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the global governing body of cycling, to create a joint proposal for cyclo-cross and cross country to be included in the Winter Olympics as soon as 2030 in France or 2034 in Salt Lake City. Whether that will inhibit or promote the case for trail running in the 2032 or 2036 Olympics remains to be seen.

The bottom line is that the idea of trail running becoming an Olympic sport has become a very hot topic, and even Kilian Jornet has weighed in about it. Will it be good for the sport? Will it take it in another direction? There are many questions.

“Should trail running be in the Olympics? It’s funny, at one glance I’m really excited for that to happen, and then part of me is like, why has this not already happened?” said Canadian runner Jazmine Lowther, who placed fourth in the 80K race at last summer’s world championships. “I think it will increase the level of professionalization, and it will bring more people into the sport. And then you can look on the other side of the coin and wonder how it would actually roll out. What would it actually look like? And would the soul of trail running be stripped away of it if it became an Olympic sport? I have heard a lot of people worried about that.”

Both in the case of cross country and trail running, the Olympic style of competition would likely be focused on shorter and faster racing on multi-loop courses in the 8K to 12K range with significant elevation changes, technical climbs and descents, and unpredictable terrain. Coe and Lappartient have even suggested a scenario in which cross country and cyclo-cross use the same course on different days.

However trail running plays out in the Olympics it would have to be about high-energy racing action with stride-for-stride competitiveness, a lot of lead changes, and even a few spills, said Greg Vollet, director of the Golden Trail World Series, because those elements would enhance spectator viewing and be more exciting for the sport on TV and social media. 

Salomon, which operates the Golden Trail World Series, has been actively pushing for trail running’s inclusion in the Olympics, and it’s why the series has increasingly used flower petal course configurations borrowed from the mountain biking racing world. Those courses are essentially four short, technical loops that connect at the top of a mountain much the way flower petals connect to the center of a flower. 

“A two-hour race format with the flower format will respect the athletes because they are never running on the same trail,” Vollet said. “There is still a need for technical improvisation all along the way, and a big risk management component, instead of running on a same-loop course where you’d do 10 laps of the same terrain, and there is no strategy and no technical advantage to be gained.”

With support from major global brands like Salomon, Nike, Merrell, and Anta, not to mention a wide range of athletes, officials, and fans, the sport is approaching a tipping point. (In 2024, Merrell promoted trail running’s Olympic case by sending endorsement letters to World Athletics, the International Olympic Committee, and the Brisbane 2032 Organizing Committee that coincided with a campaign in which a group of British runners ran a 280-mile relay, mostly on trails, from London to Paris just before the start of the 2024 Olympics.) 

What next for the Olympic process?

The IOC and Brisbane officials are expected to finalize the initial sports program for the 2032 Games by early 2027.

Magda Boulet, a 2008 U.S. Olympic marathoner who later became a successful trail runner, has advocated for cross country returning to the Olympics. She twice finished among the top 20 at the World Cross Country Championships and helped the U.S. earn bronze team medals. She’s all-in about having some sort of off-road running in the Olympics, especially because it allows such a diverse range of participants from all corners of the globe.

“There is such a great opportunity to bring some sort of trail running to the Olympic level of participation,” said Magda Boulet, a 2008 U.S. Olympic marathoner who later became a successful trail runner and has advocated for cross country and trail running to be in the Olympics. “Running happens in all conditions, in all types of weather, all over the world. I would love to see a version of (trail running), whether it’s cross country or shorter distances or longer distances, as long as people are running — on snow, through barriers, through challenging environments — I think that would be so cool for the sport. I just don’t see how it hasn’t happened yet.”

RELATED: Cam Smith talks about trail running and ski-mo racing on the Training Peaks Podcast

About the Author

UltraSignup Director of Media Brian Metzler has wear-tested more than 2,000 running shoes and is the author of “Kicksology: The Hype, Science, Culture and Cool of Running Shoes” (2019) and “Trail Running Illustrated” (2021). He has raced just about every distance from 100 meters to 100 miles, but he’s most eager to share stories about his experiences riding trains to trail runs in Chamonix.

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