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Article History

Accepted: 4 May 2026

First Online: 8 June 2026

Declarations

:

: Paul Booth, Taj Krieger and Dr Ed Maunder declare no competing interests. Dr Daniel Plews declares a professional affiliation as Head of Research for Pillar Performance, a micronutrition company with no presently commercial interest in carbohydrate fuelling products.

: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

: Not applicable. This manuscript is a current opinion piece and did not involve the collection of primary data.

: No new data were generated for this manuscript. All data shown in Figs. and were extracted from previously published studies, the full details of which are provided in the manuscript references. All other content represents a narrative synthesis of existing literature, and no primary data were collected or analysed.

: D.P. conceived the primary concepts of the manuscript, led the writing and preparation of the manuscript and takes overall responsibility for the integrity of the work. E.M. contributed to the original conceptualization of the manuscript and aided in critical revisions. P.B. made significant contributions to the literature review, particularly regarding ultra-endurance running and emerging evidence around ultra-high carbohydrate fuelling and performance. T.K. contributed to the data analysis shown in Fig.  , the formulation of Table  , and the collection and organization of the associated data. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the literature, critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version submitted for publication.