CHENGDE, China, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Jinshanling Great Wall Trail Race, the penultimate stop of the 2026 SALOMON Golden Trail World Series (GTWS), closed on Sunday as the last points-scoring race before the season-ending Grand Final.

Founded by SALOMON in 2018, the GTWS was built on a simple premise: short, fast racing on spectacular terrain, staged at landmark locations and stacked with the sport's best athletes. Jinshanling, back at the Great Wall for a second year, has become the one race in China where the country's top runners and the world's share the same course on the same day.

A world-class field on an ancient ridge

Thirty-six elite runners toed the line — one of the strongest international fields ever assembled for a race in China — and it raced like it: a hard, tactical fight from the gun rather than a procession.

The course is why the race travels. Ancient stone underfoot, the Yan Mountains on the horizon, and long, grinding climbs that punish anyone who goes out too fast. There is nothing else like it on the GTWS calendar, and that uniqueness is increasingly why international athletes build China into their season rather than treating it as a one-off.

SALOMON international elite athlete Joey Hadorn of Switzerland used the descents to move through the field and took third in the men's race in 2:15:42. In the women's race, SALOMON international elite athlete Caroline Kimutai of Kenya stayed with the front group all day and finished third in 2:43:33. China's Chi Lingjie, one of the most accomplished trail runners in the country, was the leading Chinese finisher, crossing in 2:51:22 for seventh.

From solo speed runs to squad tactics

SALOMON has rebuilt the format this season. A new team ranking system puts eight brand teams — Team SALOMON among them — on a collective leaderboard, and points are now awarded on designated uphill, downhill and sprint segments. Team SALOMON also finished top of the Team Ranking at Jinshanling.

The effect is that racing is no longer a straight test of who is fastest on the day. Runners have to decide where to spend their energy; teams have to decide who runs where. For anyone following the series on broadcast, it also turns a season of one-off results into a story with a through-line.

Bigger prize money, tighter governance

SALOMON has raised the stakes. Prize money across the series is up 50% on 2025, to €451,000, with the men's and women's season champions each taking €30,000 — enough to make committing to the full circuit worth an athlete's season, not just a single stop.

The same logic runs through integrity. Every GTWS race now carries 10 anti-doping tests across multiple substance categories, including EPO screening, with a further 50 out-of-competition tests spread across the season. It is a heavier programme than trail running has generally been used to, and it is deliberate: the series wants to be read as a governed competition, not just a spectacle.

Why Jinshanling matters to trail runners everywhere

For the global trail community, Jinshanling has become the clearest window onto how far the sport has come in China. Now in its third year in the country, the series has given Chinese runners world-class racing at home, and given international athletes a first-hand look at the terrain, the crowds and the culture that define trail running here.

5 days before the race, SALOMON staged the Great Wall Chase Challenge, sending international elites, members of the SALOMON Next-Gen squad and runners from local clubs out along the Wall together. The weekend fell over the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, folding one of China's oldest traditions into a modern trail race — competitors and spectators got the racing, and they got the atmosphere that comes with it.

Through its strategic partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery and its work with media partners in China, SALOMON is carrying all of that well beyond the mountains. Chinese landscapes, Chinese racing and Chinese trail culture are now on screens worldwide, which is the point: this is how a scene that has been building for years gets seen.

From China to the world

Athletes are where it becomes concrete. Chi Lingjie returned to Jinshanling and showed again what Chinese trail talent looks like at international level. Alongside her, Zhu Yutao of the SALOMON Next-Gen — with teammates Zhang Ziyue and Chang Miaomiao — represents the wave behind her. Racing the world's best on home terrain gives them a direct read on elite pace and race craft; it also puts China's emerging runners in front of a global audience that is watching closely.

Underneath the racing is a longer project. Over three seasons in China, SALOMON has consistently done four things: imported international race standards, funded a professional prize structure, built a youth pathway through the Next-Gen squad, and used its global broadcast reach to put Chinese racing in front of the world. The aim is not a single race weekend. It is to give a fast-growing national scene a route into the mainstream of the sport — and to let Chinese athletes race at world level at home before they go abroad.

Three years in, Jinshanling is no longer an exotic one-off on the GTWS calendar. It is a fixture: the race that brings the world's best to a Chinese mountainside, and the one that sends Chinese runners back out into the world.