The record for summitting Mont Blanc, which had stood proudly for 23 years, was shattered on Thursday as Spanish extreme trail runner and ski-alpinist Kilian Jornet set a new time by taking 13 minutes off the previous best.

Mont Blanc is considered a dangerous mountain to climb, with dozens of mountaineers having lost their lives on its slopes in recent years.

But Jornet managed to get up and down the 4,810 metre mountain unscathed in an astonishing 4 hours, 57 minutes and 40 seconds, breaking the previous world’s best time of 5 hours 10 minutes and 44 seconds set in 1990 by Pierre André Gobet.

Jornet, 25, set off at pace from the church in the town of Chamonix, which stands at an altitude of 1037 metres, at 4.46am wearing just a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a sturdy pair of running shoes. It took him a mere 3 hours 30 minutes to summit the peak.

He was accompanied by Mathéo Jacquemond, but sadly the 22-year-old Frenchman was injured on the way down, which mean Jornet was left to make a triumphant return alone, arriving back at church at 9.43am.

“The snow conditions were good, so we were able to descend easily, by sliding down on our bottoms or running,” the extreme athlete said on his return. “It was a shame to finish alone. I did the entire ascent and the descent with Matteo.

"I think the record is for both of us even if I am the only one to make it back to the church.”

Jornet is not going to stop at Mont Blanc, however, and plans to set records for climbing eight other mountains, including Mount Elbrus (5642 metres) in Russia, the Matterhorn (4,478 metres) in the Alps and the biggest of them all, Mount Everest, where the current record stands at 20 hours and 24 minutes.

(Photo:  Killian Jornet stops for refueling in the Mafate circus during the 20th Diagonale des Fous (the diagonal of the fool) or Grand Raid, a 170 km raid across La Reunion, on October 19, 2012)