Erenjia Jia

About

Erenjia Jia (known in Chinese as Jia Erenjia) is a Chinese trail runner of Tibetan ethnicity who made history at UTMB 2018 as the first Chinese athlete ever to win a UTMB race, taking the OCC (55km Orsieres–Champex–Chamonix) in Chamonix with a devastating late surge to overtake the leading Spanish runner. Born into a nomadic herding family in Qinghai province, he was sent as a child to a boarding school for nomad children and began running only at university, aged 21 — his first ever race was in June 2016. Entirely self-coached and training on no more than 200km per month, he relied on threshold running, intervals, and high-altitude hill work rather than raw volume. After his trail breakthrough he pivoted to the road, recording a 2:16 marathon in Chongqing in 2019 while targeting the Olympic qualifying standard.

Notable Wins

• — OCC by UTMB 2018

Race History