Well, well, well, look who decided to join the party, you bunch of hill-climbing, wall-scaling, rig-flowin', mud-racing lunatics!

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So the Prediction Contest went off and 17 of ya’ll submitted who you thought would make those top podium spots.

By this point everyone should know who podiumed, the storylines that happened and have checked out race highlights from across socials. So I’m not going into the details of the race. But check out our website post on a summary of what went down here: Runnin’ Through the Castle: The 2025 World’s Toughest Mudder Breakdown

Some Prediction Stats, The Prediction Results List & Some Key Highlights 🔑

Scoring was done with your best 4 out of 6 podium picks. So if there’s a no-show or someone drops out, etc. you’ve still got a shot in the game. 👊

The majority of you picked Josh Fiore to land on the podium. And since he’s been such a consistent 100 mile and WTM podium guy over the years, it’s no surprise.
Nikki Caromba was the 2nd most picked athlete as last year’s winner, and a third of you were correct in picking her to win it again.

Upsets included Kris Rugloski who dropped back after the 1st lap to pit crew for Austin Azar, Michael Schjott who had to cut it early due to some ongoing foot issues, and Mark Gaudet who had plans early in the year to come out, but ended up not making it.

Congrats to Hannah Franciosa who scored the highest, with 2 perfect picks plus Joe & Josh podiuming, (just not in the correct order). 🥇
Second went to Paul Massey who also had 2 perfect picks & was the only person spot on with the 100mile prediction with 4 men getting the orange jacket and zero women this year. 🥈
And lastly, shoutout to Nicole Coccia who had an amazing first half of the race, but had to drop back due to foot issues. Who was the only person to pick the underdog Joe Rucco for that top 1st place spot. 🏆

I hope everyone who took part enjoyed the race, the stories from the weekend and following along with the Athletes you picked and were rooting for!

One storyline last year was about how long and how many obstacles were at this Ultra World Championship race. Spartan calls it a “50K”, but it was a good bit more! 😯
Check out this graphic from last year with some details.

Will we see a ~58K type of race again?!?! 😕

Let’s look at the Athletes who are currently known to be out there this weekend to take part in the Spartan Ultra World Championship.

Full Disclosure: Many names here were obtained from Spartan Race France’s Facebook page as “Attending”. Is it fully accurate? I don’t know. Additionally, there are many foreign athletes listed here that I really don’t know much about.

Luca Pescollderungg / Thibault Jean / Nikolaj Dam
Grouping all 3 of these guys in, as they were the top 3 men last year coming in at:
Luca - 6:49
Thibault - 7:03
Nikolaj - 7:21
And Spartan Race France is showing they’ll be here to race again!

Ryan Atkins
Does the guy need an introduction?!?!
He wasn’t here last year, but I’m sure you’re all aware of his status and accomplishments in the OCR scene.
A podium pick? Yeah, good chance for sure.
First place? Maybe… ?
But also, let’s not forget that he’s a dad now and has cut back from OCR & other race events a good bit over the last year or two at this point.
So… Does he still got it?
We’ll find out soon.

Jonathan Garcia - Placed 4th here last year with a 7:32.
Sven Lusti - 5th place last year with a 7:39.
Stephane Ollion - 6th place last year with a 7:43.
Marc Hofstatter - 8th place last year.
Samuel Castela - 9th place last year.
Grzegorz Szczechla - 12th place last year.

Petra Arvela / Yvonne Xu
I’m grouping these two in as Spartan Race France socials says they’ll be coming and they were the 2nd and 3rd place women from last year with times of:
Petra - 9:21
Yvonne - 9:46

They were behind Ulrikke Evensen at 8:33.
Spartan Race France shows Ulrikke as going. But I’ve heard from others she’s not attending this year.
Additionally, I’ll note that Sabrina Dalio (2nd place at Spartan Trifecta WC) was posted as going, but has dropped out and won’t be running. So don’t accidentally add these two in your predictions!

Cassandra Gill
5th place at this race last year with a 10:11.
Cassandra has been dominating the U.S. Spartan scene this year with wins in the National Series and other events throughout the country. I believe she’s known for having some great speed on course, but her ultra experience is still fresh and still picking it up. This race seems to be a focus as she’s been going after some ultras and mountain venues this year to prep for Morzine.

Sabrina Buhagiar
Her first time in Morzine, Sabrina has been going after the Spartan US National Series races this year and consistently getting Top 3 & 4 spots. Morzine also seems to be a goal race as she went and raced the Spartan New Jersey Ultra a couple months ago to get some ultra and mountain experience, coming in 2nd place there, even with big time fueling issues. I’m sure a lot was learned at that race, and she’ll make adjustments and be ready for Morzine!

These next names I truly don’t know anything about. But they were on the Spartan France list as Top Athletes, so here they are.

Andrea Berquez
Leslie Lejeune
Lena Weller
Quinie Verheijen
Ailene Tolentino
Alzbeta Kubascikova
Jobert Carolino
Jan Vladar
Jiaju Zhao
Abahan Sandi Menchi
Kato Hiroshi

Hopefully this info can help a bit on your prediction submissions.
If you know of anyone else who’s a podium contender for Friday’s race, message me and I’ll add some updates into our IG stories for everyone.
Thanks for taking part in our Predictions!

Link for the Predictions!

It’s a great way to show support for the page & look good at your next event 😎
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