Ben Dhiman Becomes First Runner to Break 19 Hours at UTMB
He won the race by more than 30 minutes and became the second American man to claim the title.
Ben Dhiman finally got the result he’d been chasing for the past four years in Chamonix, France. The 34-year-old American was the runaway winner of the 2026 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc trail running race, becoming the first runner to break 19 hours for the 108-mile loop around the Mont Blanc massif through parts of France, Italy, and Switzerland.
After failing to finish the race in 2023 and 2024, Dhiman was on his game last year, finishing runner-up to British runner Tom Evans. Following the same aggressive style of running that he and Evans engaged in last year, Dhiman built a lead through the middle of the night in Italy and never let it go, outrunning a deep field of international runners while covering over 10 000 metres of vertical gain and loss in 18 hours, 16 minutes, and 29 seconds to claim the biggest title in trail running.
While it’s technically not an official course record, as a section of the traditional course in Italy was removed the past two years because of weather concerns, he still surpassed Evans’s winning time from a year ago (19:18:58) by an hour while covering the course more than 90 minutes faster than he did last year (19:51:37).
“I didn’t give the race course any respect today. I just pushed as hard as I could and yeah, sometimes that works,” said Dhiman, who grew up in Cincinnati but has lived with his wife and three sons in France for the past several years.
Dhiman is the second American to win the men’s race in the 23-year history of the event, following Jim Walmsley’s 2023 victory. Overall, he is the seventh US runner to win the race, as Krissy Moehl (2003, 2009), Nikki Kimball (2007), Rory Bosio (2013, 2014), Courtney Dauwalter (2019, 2021, 2023) and Katie Schide (2022, 2024) have also won UTMB titles.
How It Started
Nothing about the race started easy. Rainstorms forced a two-hour delay of the planned start from 5:45pm to 7:45pm on Friday in Chamonix, and that meant nearly 2 400 runners went straight into darkness.
The start of the race on Friday evening in Chamonix.
Dhiman didn’t force anything early. He moved through the field methodically as the race moved through the French ski towns of St. Gervais and Les Contaminies, finally passing Frenchman Baptiste Chassagne to take the lead before the start of the long climb toward Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme on the way into Italy.
“I was the fastest out of the aid station, and there was nobody around me, so I just decided to do my own pacing, and then it turned out really good,” Dhiman said.
Dhiman kept extending his lead to 20 minutes at the 80km mark in the Italian ski village of Courmayeur. As first light began to brighten the skies early Saturday morning, Dhiman made quick work of the hardest climb of the race, going over the 2 500 metre summit of the Grand Col Ferret into Switzerland at the 100km mark with a smile on his face.
“There was a full moon – big, visible, super bright – over the mountains as I was going up Grand Col Ferret,” Dhiman said. “It was magic.”
Behind him, several of the top men in the race dropped out of the race – including Vincent Bouillard, the 2024 UTMB winner who just won the Western States 100 in June, as well as other pre-race favourites Josh Wade (United Kingdom), Rod Farvard (USA), Canyon Woodward (USA), and Chris Myers (USA). Three of the preeminent favourites and past winners, Tom Evans (UK), Jim Walmsley (USA), and Kilian Jornet (Spain), withdrew in the days before the race.
But none of those runners on their best day could likely have kept up with Dhiman on Friday and Saturday.
While others were slowing from fatigue, Dhiman kept extending his lead through Switzerland, reaching the 130km aid station at Champex Lac 28 minutes ahead of Chassagne’s arrival. Dhiman was the first runner in the history of the race to cover the 25km section from the top of Grand Col Ferret to Champex Lac in under two hours and, at that point, was well ahead of the pace that Evans had set last year.
From there, three difficult climbs remained on the way back into France, and the late-morning temperatures began to rise. The heat was a factor, but it didn’t lessen Dhiman’s grip on the lead. Although Chassagne kept charging in pursuit of Dhiman, the gap never got closer than about 22 minutes.
“Baptiste was pushing me a bit, in the last part of the race course,” Dhiman said, “because I was used to the lead expanding and it wasn’t expanding, so I was a bit nervous, but no worries.”
How It Ended
Although Dhiman took a fall on the final section of trail high above Chamonix, he didn’t falter. He got back on his feet, made the 8km descent into the city and was greeted by a hero’s welcome and a rapturous roar from a crowd estimated at 30 000 spectators when he returned to Chamonix.
He made his way through the city’s pedestrian village and sprinted his way to the finish line adjacent to Chamonix’s iconic Place du Triangle de l’Amitié.
Chassagne kept chugging and finished second in 18:47:38, and while his effort to close the gap on Dhiman proved futile, he was able to do enough to stay ahead of hard-charging American Caleb Olson of Utah, who moved up throughout the second half of the race to finish third less than a minute later in 18:48:24.
French runner Virgile Moriset was fourth in 19:00:23, while Ecuador’s Joaquin Lopez was fifth in 19:06:48.
“I knew I had to keep it up, and hold on to it, and so I fought with what I had on the day,” Chassagne said. “And today I finished second to Ben Dhiman, who is truly and genuinely my favourite athlete. To me it’s still an honour to finish second. There was no touching him today, so I still feel like I was the best of the rest of the field.”
Blandine L’Hirondel Stuns the Field to Win UTMB
The French athlete ran the fastest time in race history to earn her first UTMB title over Americans Rachel Entrekin and Emily Schmitz. Despite stumbling on tired legs several times in the final 8km, the 35-year-old L’Hirondel, a practising obstetrician-gynaecologist and professional trail runner, won the women’s UTMB race in stunning fashion on Saturday evening, completing the course in 21 hours, 54 minutes, and 49 seconds, faster than any woman in race history.
Although it’s technically not an official course record – that still belongs to American Katie Schide (22:09:31 in 2022) because a section of the traditional course in Italy was removed the past two years because of weather concerns. However, L’Hirondel easily surpassed Ruth Croft’s winning time from a year ago (22:56:23).
“I can’t believe it,” said L’Hirondel, who became the fourth French woman to win in the 23-year history of the race. “Maybe I will believe it in a few days that I am the champion. But if I am the champion, the people here are, too, because they encouraged me the whole way through. You helped make this happen for me.”
Women’s Top 10: 2026 UTMB
- Blandine L’Hirondel (FRA) — 21:54:49
- Rachel Entrekin (USA) — 22:15:54
- Emily Schmitz (USA) — 22:17:28
- Careth Arnold (USA) — 23:05:20
- Jazmine Lowther (CAN) — 23:21:55
- Katarzyna Dombrowska (POL) — 23:27:34
- Lucy Bartholomew (AUS) — 23:44:29
- Antonina Iushina (AIN) — 23:49:58
- Anne Cécile Thévenot (FRA) — 24:02:00
- Anne-Sofie Pollestad (NOR) — 24:04:56
Men’s Top 10: 2026 UTMB
- Ben Dhiman (USA) — 18:16:29
- Baptiste Chassagne (FRA) — 18:47:38
- Caleb Olson (USA) — 18:48:24
- Virgile Moriset (FRA) — 19:00:23
- Joaquín López (ECU) — 19:06:48
- Hannes Namberger (GER) — 19:13:51
- Gautier Bonnecarrere (FRA) — 19:23:16
- Antoine Charvolin (FRA) — 19:40:33
- Yannick Noël (FRA) — 19:51:42
- Jean-Philippe Tschumi (SUI) — 19:58:24
This article first appeared on the Runner’s World USA Website.
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