Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz set a new men’s known record (FKT) in the supported version on the GR20 in Corsica. He arrived in Conca on Friday 25 September 2026 at 8:29am, after 27 hours and 29 minutes of racing over the 166 kilometres of the route. His time has wiped out a recently set record, held up to then by François D’Haene.
On the GR20, Dunand-Pallaz improved François D’Haene’s previous mark by 2 hours, 17 minutes and 20 seconds. The former men’s best supported time was worth 29h46’20’’ according to the source. This improvement comes at a time when D’Haene had already lost an FKT this week, particularly linked to the John Muir Trail “supported”.
Dunand-Pallaz launched his attempt from Calenzana on Thursday 24 September 2026 at 5:00am. The race follows a crossing of Corsica from the north-west to the south-east, with around 12,000 metres of positive elevation gain. The source stresses the level of difficulty, citing in particular sections of scrambling and technical descents on rocky terrain.
To organise the support, he followed the rules of the Fédération Corse de Montagne: a maximum of two pacers at a time, with the possibility for them to carry nutrition and equipment. He also had his “GR20 notebook” signed by each refuge warden along the route. The effort mobilised a team of 10 pacers, named by Théo Detienne, Arthur Joyeux-Bouillon, Diego Pazos, Julien Michelon and Daniel Antonioli.
In the course of the race, Dunand-Pallaz took a clear lead very early on against the record benchmarks. In just 23 km, he was already almost 29 minutes ahead of D’Haene’s splits; at the Col de Verde (around 145 km), he was about two hours up. With 19 km remaining, at the Col de Bavella, he was still reporting a buffer close to 2h30, despite the remaining 700 metres of climbing and 1,670 metres of descent, according to the source.
After setting his rhythm, he says he only checked his splits at certain points, “after 40k”, then again “at 75k”, while claiming to have run “by feel”. The source adds that the performance is still awaiting verification on the Fastest Known Time site, while presenting the effort as possibly his first recognised FKT. It finally notes that he isn’t announcing any other FKT in the short term, but is aiming for Hardrock 100 in 2027.
