Two Vietnamese Runners Complete the 330 km Tor des Géants: Lê Thị Hằng and Lưu Đức Toản Conquer the 'Tower of the Giants'

Two Vietnamese Runners Complete the 330 km Tor des Géants

During the Tor des Géants, held from September 13 to September 19 in Italy's Aosta Valley, two Vietnamese runners, Lê Thị Hằng and Lưu Đức Toản, officially completed the race's main 330 km distance. The event is a single-stage, non-stop mountain ultra-trail widely regarded as one of the most demanding foot races on the planet. According to VnExpress, Lê Thị Hằng finished in approximately 138 hours 40 minutes, while Lưu Đức Toản finished in approximately 137 hours 50 minutes. Both came in inside the organizer's 150-hour cut-off.

This is not a front-of-race result. It is a completion result. But in a race where only about 60 percent of starters reach the finish line, completing the course is itself a minority outcome. This article examines that result across multiple dimensions: the specific numbers, the race context, terrain and altitude, the entry mechanism, the two athletes' backgrounds, safety risk, the international landscape, Vietnam's ultra-trail ecosystem, and the information gaps that should be flagged rather than filled with speculation.

1. What Tor des Géants Is and Why It Is Different

Tor des Géants, which translates as "Tower of the Giants," is an ultra-trail race held in the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps. Created in 2026, it quickly became one of the world's most punishing running challenges. The main distance covers 330 km with more than 24,000 m of cumulative elevation gain.

The fundamental difference between Tor des Géants and most other trail races lies in its format. It is a single-stage, non-stop event. The organizer does not divide the race into fixed daily stages, nor does it mandate rest hours. Runners must self-manage all running, walking, eating, sleeping, and recovery across the entire journey. That format turns Tor des Géants from a pure speed contest into a managed survival test.

In this domain, the term "ultra trail" refers to off-road endurance racing well beyond marathon distance, typically featuring large cumulative elevation gain and mountain terrain that athletes must navigate themselves. The concept is entirely distinct from road marathon running and from track and field events. Assessing an ultra-trail result using road-marathon logic is a common methodological error, and this article will show specifically why.

2. The Specific Results

Lê Thị Hằng, a female runner from Vũng Tàu, completed the 330 km distance in approximately 138 hours 40 minutes. Lưu Đức Toản completed the same distance in approximately 137 hours 50 minutes. The gap between them is only about 50 minutes — extremely narrow across a journey of 330 km lasting nearly six days and nights without a break.

Both finished inside the organizer's 150-hour limit, leaving roughly 11 to 12 hours of margin. That is a safe but not comfortable cushion. In a race where one overly long stop, one minor injury, or one cold-induced collapse could push a runner close to the limit, an 11-to-12-hour buffer means there was not much room for a major incident.

The original report does not publish the two Vietnamese runners' finishing positions. That omission is notable, since rankings are standard information in most sports reporting. The absence of rankings, together with the absence of checkpoint split times, suggests the report was built as a human-interest story rather than a performance comparison.

3. The Comparison Numbers: The Gap to the Front

To place the Vietnamese results in context, look at the winners. In the men's race, Jia Ju Zhao won in 65 hours 55 minutes 22 seconds. In the women's race, Katharina Hartmuth won in 67 hours 10 minutes 09 seconds.

Direct comparison: Lưu Đức Toản's roughly 137 hours 50 minutes is about 2.09 times Jia Ju Zhao's time. Lê Thị Hằng's roughly 138 hours 40 minutes is about 2.06 times Katharina Hartmuth's time. In other words, both Vietnamese runners took roughly double the winners' time.

The absolute gap between the winner and the back-of-field finishers reaches roughly 70 hours. That figure is shocking if read in road-marathon language, where the gap between first and tenth is sometimes a matter of seconds. But in the context of Tor des Géants, a 70-hour spread is entirely normal. The 150-hour cut-off creates a window wide enough for many different tiers of ability to coexist on a single course.

One clarification is essential: Tor des Géants winners are world-class professional ultra runners who can run through multiple days and nights at an intensity most recreational runners cannot simulate. The two Vietnamese runners are high-level amateurs with substantial race resumes. Placing the two groups side by side is necessary for data purposes, but the meaning must be interpreted carefully.

4. What the 150-Hour Cut-Off Means

The Tor des Géants cut-off is 150 hours, equivalent to 6 days and 6 hours. This is the race's most binding rule and its most effective filter. The organizer does not screen athletes at the start line using performance standards; the race screens them at the finish line.

For the two Vietnamese runners, finishing at around 138 hours means they covered 330 km at an average pace of roughly 2.4 km per hour measured against the clock. That sounds slow by marathon standards, but it includes all sleeping, eating, equipment repair, injury management, and movement over steep terrain at altitude.

Notably, both finished with broadly similar margins. Lưu Đức Toản had about 12 hours 10 minutes to spare; Lê Thị Hằng had about 11 hours 20 minutes. That similarity suggests the two may have maintained comparable pacing strategies, or may have supported each other for part of the journey. This is an inference, not confirmed information from the original report.

5. The Roughly 60 Percent Completion Rate

One of the most objective indicators of Tor des Géants' difficulty is its completion rate. According to data cited in the report, about 60 percent of starters reach the finish. That means roughly 40 percent do not finish.

Set against a major road marathon, where completion rates typically exceed 95 percent, the severity of Tor des Géants becomes clear. In that context, Lê Thị Hằng and Lưu Đức Toản placing inside the 60 percent who finish is a substantive result, not an inflated one.

Two extremes should be avoided in interpretation. The first is dismissing the achievement with the argument that it is "only a finish, not a win." That argument ignores the 40 percent of starters who could not do it. The second is elevating the achievement to "world-class" status on the basis of finishing. That argument ignores the roughly double time gap to the front.

The accurate position lies in between: a genuine endurance achievement, in the mid-to-back finisher cohort, not in the contending cohort.

6. Terrain: Over 24,000 m of Climbing and 20-Plus Passes Above 2,000 m

Total cumulative elevation gain on the 330 km Tor des Géants course exceeds 24,000 m. To visualize this, it is equivalent to climbing Mount Everest from sea level nearly three times, or roughly 2,400 flights of a 10-metre-tall building. All of that climbing is done in high-mountain terrain, without paved roads, without artificial lighting, and mostly at night.

Beyond cumulative gain, the course crosses more than 20 passes above 2,000 m above sea level. This is a decisive performance factor. Above 2,000 m, oxygen concentration in the air drops significantly, reducing oxygen transport to muscles, raising heart rate at the same effort level, and slowing recovery.

For a runner who trains mainly in tropical lowlands, altitude adaptation is a major variable. The original report does not mention whether the two Vietnamese runners undertook an altitude acclimatization camp in Europe. That is an important information gap, and any conclusion about how optimized their conditioning was must be flagged as unverified.

7. Course Structure: 7 Support Stations and a No-Fixed-Stage Format

According to the report, Tor des Géants has 7 large support stations spaced roughly 50 km apart. These stations provide food, drink, and medical assistance. This structure shapes the entire athlete strategy: runners plan around roughly 50 km segments, calculate how much supply to carry, and use stations as temporary recovery points.

Together with the no-fixed-stage, no-mandatory-rest format, this creates a style of racing fundamentally different from multi-day stage races. In a stage race, runners know they will get a set number of hours of sleep at the end of each day. At Tor des Géants, the decision to sleep or not to sleep belongs entirely to the runner. Every hour of sleep is an hour subtracted from the 150-hour budget. This is a brutal optimization problem in which the cost of rest is measured directly in lost time.

Allocating sleep sensibly is a distinct skill in multi-day ultra trail. Too little sleep leads to hallucinations, disorientation, poor decision-making, and increased accident risk. Too much sleep risks missing the cut-off. The fact that both Vietnamese runners finished inside the limit shows they solved this problem to some degree, although the absence of split data means pacing quality cannot be assessed quantitatively.

8. Profile: Lê Thị Hằng

Lê Thị Hằng is from Vũng Tàu. The original report does not state her age. Her disclosed race resume includes Prenn Trail 250 km, Son La Ultra Trail 100 km, and VMM 100 km.

The structure of that resume is notable because it shows a deliberate progression path. Prenn Trail 250 km is a genuine ultra-endurance distance, not a jump from marathon. Completing a 250 km distance before stepping up to the 330 km Tor des Géants is a sensible stepping stone in terms of volume and experience. The two 100 km races, Son La Ultra Trail and VMM, serve to build base fitness and terrain skills.

VMM, the Vietnam Mountain Marathon, is one of Vietnam's largest and longest-running trail events. Having VMM on a runner's resume signals that the domestic race ecosystem has produced athletes capable of stepping onto the international stage.

One analytically noteworthy detail: Lê Thị Hằng's time of 138 hours 40 minutes is only about 50 minutes slower than her male compatriot Lưu Đức Toản over the same 330 km. That gap is very narrow. It could reflect one of two things: either Lê Thị Hằng has comparable ability to Lưu Đức Toản over ultra-long terrain, or the two coordinated their pacing and supported each other for much of the journey. The original report does not provide enough data to distinguish between these possibilities, so any conclusion must be classed as low confidence.

9. Profile: Lưu Đức Toản

Lưu Đức Toản has a thicker international resume. Disclosed races include UTMB, Mantra 116 km, ULJU Trail 9 Peaks 100 km, and Mt Fuji 100 km.

UTMB, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, is one of the world's most prestigious ultra-trail events, also held in the Alps but under a different format. That Lưu Đức Toản has completed the UTMB 100 km is an important signal of baseline ability. Mantra 116 km, ULJU Trail 9 Peaks 100 km, and Mt Fuji 100 km show he has raced across multiple terrains and countries, including Japan and Indonesia.

It was Lưu Đức Toản himself who drew the direct comparison between Tor des Géants and UTMB. According to the report, he described Tor des Géants as "many times harder and more challenging" than UTMB. That is a first-person technical judgment. While subjective, it carries some weight because the person making it has completed UTMB 100 km and therefore has empirical grounds for comparison.

A clear distinction is needed: this comparison is not a claim about ranking, but a claim about the relative difficulty of two events. It has value as an insider technical testimony, not as objective measurement data.

10. What Lưu Đức Toản Said About Cliffside Terrain

According to the report, Lưu Đức Toản described narrow paths running along cliff faces with no safety ropes. This is the single most important piece of safety information in the entire story.

In most mountain races with technical elements, organizers install fixed lines or safety ropes on dangerous sections. The fact that Tor des Géants leaves cliffside sections unroped indicates that the race's safety philosophy rests on a high degree of athlete self-responsibility. That philosophy has the advantage of preserving the challenge's authenticity and difficulty, but it also raises questions about the organizer's legal liability in the event of an accident.

The original report does not address liability. That is an analytical gap, and any inference about organizer responsibility must be classed as low confidence.

11. The 2026 Incident and the Safety Lesson

According to information cited in the report, a Tor des Géants participant died in 2026. The case named is Yang Yuan, who died from a slip, a fall, and head impact.

This is not a detail that can be skipped when analysing the two Vietnamese runners' result. The existence of a fatality precedent gives Tor des Géants a genuine life-safety dimension absent from most road or track events.

The accident mechanism described in the 2026 case directly matches Lưu Đức Toản's account of narrow, unroped cliffside sections. When two independent sources point to the same risk mechanism, the confidence level of the risk assessment rises substantially.

For the two Vietnamese runners, finishing safely in around 138 hours shows they managed this risk effectively. It must nonetheless be stressed that a safe outcome in one attempt does not reduce the race's inherent risk level.

12. Why a 330 km Time Cannot Be Compared to a Road Marathon

One of the most common errors in reading ultra-trail news is imposing road-marathon logic on the result. In road marathon running, time is a direct measure of ability, terrain error is small, and race conditions are relatively uniform. In high-mountain ultra trail, time is a composite measure of many variables.

The main variables include cumulative elevation gain, absolute altitude, weather conditions, surface conditions, navigation ability, sleep strategy, digestive problem management, and equipment condition. With over 24,000 m of cumulative gain and more than 20 passes above 2,000 m, the Vietnamese runners' finish times reflect survival endurance, not pure speed.

Day-to-night temperature swings in high mountains also inflate elapsed time. Days can be sunny and mild, while nights can drop sharply to levels that cause hypothermia if equipment is inadequate. Changing clothing, managing thermoregulation, and maintaining nutrition in cold conditions consume significant time and energy.

So when comparing Lê Thị Hằng's and Lưu Đức Toản's times with a marathon or a flat ultra, it must be recognized that these are different disciplines. The figure of 138 hours only has meaning within the reference frame of Tor des Géants itself: the 150-hour limit, the 60 percent completion rate, and the front group's times of roughly 66 to 67 hours.

13. The Winners: Jia Ju Zhao and Katharina Hartmuth

In the men's race, Jia Ju Zhao won in 65 hours 55 minutes 22 seconds. In the women's race, Katharina Hartmuth won in 67 hours 10 minutes 09 seconds.

Jia Ju Zhao's win is notable from a sporting-geopolitics angle. An Asian runner winning one of the world's harshest ultra-trail events signals that Asia is reaching the elite tier of the discipline. For decades, top-level ultra trail was an almost exclusive playground for European and North American athletes. The emergence of an Asian champion changes that picture.

Katharina Hartmuth's win in the women's race, in 67 hours 10 minutes 09 seconds, is also notable because it is very close to the men's winning time. The gap between the two champions is only about 1 hour 15 minutes across a 330 km course.

It should be noted that the original report publishes neither the Vietnamese runners' finishing positions nor the total number of starters. Their exact place in the standings therefore cannot be determined. That is a data limitation that must be stated clearly.

14. The Asian Context in Ultra Trail

An Asian runner winning the men's Tor des Géants, combined with two Vietnamese runners finishing, produces a notable regional picture.

Asia's ultra-trail development is happening on two levels. The first is the rise of an elite tier, marked by championship results at top-tier global events. The second is the expansion of a participation tier, marked by the number of runners from Asian countries completing ultra-endurance distances.

Vietnam's case belongs to the second level. It is a meaningful participation milestone, not yet a threat at the front. Assessing that position accurately matters, to avoid both understating and overstating the achievement.

One variable worth noting is that Southeast Asia's tropical training environment matches poorly with the cold, dry, high-Alpine race conditions. Adapting to cold, altitude, and steep rocky terrain requires time and specific training conditions. The original report does not disclose whether the two Vietnamese runners undertook this adaptation in Europe.

15. Three Vietnamese Runners: Two Finishes, One DNF

According to the report, three Vietnamese runners entered Tor des Géants. The two finishers were Lê Thị Hằng and Lưu Đức Toản. The third did not finish and was described as resident in France.

This detail is analytically significant. A Vietnamese runner living in France — geographically closer to the Alps — failed to finish, while two runners coming from Vietnam did finish. That shows geography is not the sole determining factor. Proximity does not equal altitude acclimatization or specific high-mountain training.

Over-interpreting a single case should be avoided, however. A DNF can have many causes: injury, digestive problems, weather conditions, or simply a safety-driven decision to stop. The original report does not state a specific cause.

What matters is that the existence of a DNF within the same starting group confirms that non-finish risk is real, even for prepared athletes.

16. Entry Mechanism and the Nature of Tor des Géants

Tor des Géants sits outside the Olympic system, outside World Athletics' world championship structure, and outside the Diamond League structure. Its authority comes from difficulty and reputation within the ultra-trail community, not from federation governance or prize-money tiers.

Entry to Tor des Géants is not based on a performance standard of the "A standard or B standard" type. This is a fundamental difference from sports with clear qualification systems. In ultra trail, entry typically depends on a points system from prior races or on a lottery. The original report does not detail the specific mechanism the two Vietnamese runners used.

The analytical consequence is that this result cannot be assessed through a "qualified or not qualified" lens. The only meaningful evaluation criteria are the 150-hour cut-off and the roughly 60 percent completion rate. Combined, these two factors mean Tor des Géants self-selects at the finish line, not at the entry gate.

It should also be noted that Tor des Géants almost certainly has mandatory equipment rules, including safety gear and emergency provisions, in line with general high-mountain ultra standards. The original report does not list these rules.

17. Vietnam's Ultra-Trail Ecosystem as Seen Through Race Resumes

One of the most valuable pieces of information in the original report is not the Tor des Géants result itself, but the two athletes' race resumes.

Lê Thị Hằng's resume includes Prenn Trail 250 km, Son La Ultra Trail 100 km, and VMM 100 km. Lưu Đức Toản's includes UTMB, Mantra 116 km, ULJU Trail 9 Peaks 100 km, and Mt Fuji 100 km.

That list indicates the existence of a domestic race calendar large enough to feed athletes toward international events. Prenn Trail at 250 km is a particularly important signal, since very few Southeast Asian countries can stage an ultra-trail event at that distance.

The existence of races such as Son La Ultra Trail and VMM indicates a tiered race system: 100 km distances as the foundation, 250 km distances as a stepping stone, and international events such as Tor des Géants, UTMB, and Mt Fuji as the summit.

This is a healthy development structure. It allows runners to progress along a pathway rather than leaping from marathon directly to ultra endurance.

18. Information Gaps That Must Be Stated Clearly

An honest analysis must list what is not known, not only what is known.

First, the two athletes' ages are not published. This makes it impossible to assess their position on the age-performance curve, an important indicator in sports analysis.

Second, checkpoint split times are not published. This makes it impossible to assess pacing quality, identify where runners sped up or slowed, or evaluate the consistency of their strategy.

Third, final rankings are not published. This makes it impossible to determine their relative position among finishers.

Fourth, injury histories are not published. This makes it impossible to assess personal risk relative to the event's inherent risk.

Fifth, information on coaches, training groups, and funding sources is not published. This makes it impossible to assess the support structure behind the performance.

Sixth, anti-doping and eligibility aspects are not addressed. It must be stressed that missing information does not imply any suspicion; it simply means the dimension cannot be assessed.

Stating these six gaps is necessary to avoid inferences that go beyond the data. In sports journalism, filling gaps with speculation is the most common cause of information distortion.

19. Risk and Severity: A Synthesis

Synthesizing the risk factors of Tor des Géants reveals a multi-layered picture.

Competitive risk includes the risk of not finishing due to the 150-hour cut-off, with a DNF rate of roughly 40 percent. This is a medium-probability, high-impact risk.

Physiological risk includes altitude illness, with more than 20 passes above 2,000 m, and hypothermia risk from day-night temperature swings in high mountains.

Life-safety risk includes the risk of slipping on unroped cliffside sections. The probability of this risk is low, but its impact can be catastrophic. The 2026 fatality precedent establishes that this risk is real.

Financial risk includes self-funded costs for travel to Italy, specialist equipment, and preparation time. This is characteristic of the high-level amateur model in ultra trail.

Systemic risk includes the harsh weather conditions of the Alps in September, with the potential for rapid change affecting the entire route.

Overall, the risk rating for the event is high. A clear distinction must be made: risk to the information itself is low, but risk to the activity is high. These two categories should not be conflated.

20. Sports Economics and Transmission Effects

In sports-economics terms, this story's impact is mainly cultural and inspirational within Vietnam's fast-growing trail-running market, rather than financially significant at the global level.

Tor des Géants sits outside the broadcast-rights economy and outside the prize-money system of Olympic sports. A completion result there therefore does not significantly shift the sport's commercial picture.

Domestically, the impact can be divided into four groups. First, running culture: an international result may encourage more people to enter domestic ultra distances. Second, brand communications: running-gear brands may use the result as a proof point in the Vietnamese market. Third, sports tourism: the story may promote the Aosta Valley as a bucket-list challenge for Asian runners. Fourth, the youth talent chain: the result may serve as an inspirational signal for the next generation of athletes.

It should be stressed that all of these effects are small in scale and medium-term in horizon. This is characteristic of a niche discipline, not a mass-market one.

21. Conclusion

Lê Thị Hằng and Lưu Đức Toản completed the 330 km Tor des Géants distance with more than 24,000 m of cumulative elevation gain, inside the 150-hour cut-off. Their times were approximately 138 hours 40 minutes and 137 hours 50 minutes respectively, leaving roughly 11 to 12 hours of margin.

This is a genuine endurance achievement and a meaningful participation milestone for Vietnam's developing trail-running ecosystem. But it is not a front-of-race result. The two runners' times were roughly double the winners' times, and both sit in the mid-to-back finisher cohort of a race with a roughly 60 percent completion rate.

The most important thing in reading this story is to hold a balance between two extremes. On one hand, completing an event with a fatality precedent, a DNF rate above 40 percent, and over 24,000 m of climbing is an accomplishment that cannot be dismissed. On the other hand, calling it a world-class speed performance is a misreading of the data.

The accurate position of this story is: two high-level amateur Vietnamese runners reached the finish of one of the harshest races on the planet, within the minority 60 percent who finish — and that in itself is a message strong enough without any exaggeration.

Key Facts Summary

Distance: 330 km, single-stage, non-stop format. Cumulative elevation gain: over 24,000 m. Passes above 2,000 m: more than 20. Cut-off time: 150 hours. Completion rate: approximately 60 percent. Lê Thị Hằng's time: approximately 138 hours 40 minutes. Lưu Đức Toản's time: approximately 137 hours 50 minutes. Men's winner: Jia Ju Zhao, 65 hours 55 minutes 22 seconds. Women's winner: Katharina Hartmuth, 67 hours 10 minutes 09 seconds. Support stations: 7, spaced roughly 50 km apart. Location: Aosta Valley, Italy. Race window: September 13 to September 19. Vietnamese entrants: 3, with 2 finishes and 1 DNF. Source: VnExpress.