UTMB 2026: Ben Dhiman wins a supersonic edition as Blandine L'Hirondel battles to glory

“When I have a goal in mind, I do everything I can to achieve it.” Ben Dhiman (Asics) showed us the full extent of his determination in the interview he gave us before this year’s UTMB. It is the sort of punchline that is easy to deliver, but incredibly difficult to put into practice on the trails. Except that the lean American, a relentless worker in training, brought to a perfect conclusion today a four-year project aimed at conquering the UTMB. After dropping out in 2023 and 2024, then finishing second last year, Ben Dhiman never lost faith. He kept working like a man possessed, putting in months with more than 100 hours of training, and was rewarded in emphatic fashion.

I asked myself: Do I slow down and wait for a few people, or do I go all in?

Few people imagined that the 19-hour barrier would come crashing down so spectacularly under the American’s relentless assault. “I didn’t respect the course at all today,” the winner said, meaning that he had taken the trails and obstacles head-on throughout the night and into the day. “I found myself completely alone at Les Contamines, and that surprised me,” he continued at the finish. “I asked myself then: Do I slow down and wait for a few people, or do I go all in?” Dhiman chose the latter option, and his risky solo break, launched so early in the race, carried him to the summit.

Ideal racing conditions certainly helped him produce such a stratospheric performance. The organisers had decided to delay the start by two hours, avoiding sending the 2,500-strong field out into stormy rain. That complicated the logistics, with the CCC finish coinciding with the UTMB start, but it undoubtedly came as a relief to the athletes.

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After light rain at the start and over the opening kilometres, the night unfolded in near-perfect conditions beneath a brilliant full moon. “You could see it at Courmayeur (81.3 km), where the athletes arrived much fresher than in previous years, and there were far fewer dropouts than usual,” noted Julien Chorier, the race’s Sport Director. Among the leading names, only Paul Cornut-Chauvinc (Asics) had to bow out at the Italian aid station. “It was cool in the cols, but not cold, which was ideal for running,” Julien Chorier explained. Last year’s snow, particularly in the Grand Col Ferret, had disappeared. All of those factors undoubtedly helped the field move faster. Dhiman, for example, was 35 minutes quicker than last year on the climb to the Grand Col Ferret.

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Once he had gone solo, Dhiman managed to keep his first pursuer, Baptiste Chassagne (On), at a respectable distance, although he never built an insurmountable lead. The gap fluctuated between 20 and 30 minutes depending on the terrain. “Twenty minutes is nothing in an ultra, and I was always worried that Baptiste might come back at me.”

I was the best of the chasers

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Chassagne, too, arrived right on schedule. After missing the UTMB last year following his second place in 2024, and choosing instead to toughen up on La Réunion’s rugged trails, the Combloran had set out to improve his 2024 time of 20:22 and break 20 hours. Mission emphatically accomplished. The On athlete could savour this second place as a small victory, such was Ben Dhiman’s dominance on the day.

The Frenchman suffered from start to finish, as he explained at the line: “For the first 30 minutes, I felt really low. I was wondering what I was doing there. I had no desire to race, as if the preparation had been too perfect.” Fortunately, reaching St Gervais, not far from home, revived him and quickly brought him back into the race, at the cost of a fierce personal battle. “I had to fight for this one,” he said. “It was hard from A to Z. I fought with the tools I had today, and I’m proud that I hung on and didn’t give up. I finished behind Ben, who is genuinely my favourite athlete. He gave me a proper beating at the Ventoux a year ago, and he’s done it again today. He was the best today, and I was the best of the chasers….”

It took just a few seconds for Baptiste to avoid slipping to third, thanks to the impressive finish of another American, Caleb Olson (Nike). The 2025 Western States winner had been in contention throughout, eventually overtaking Ecuador’s Joaquin Lopez in the final third of the race before catching sight of Baptiste Chassagne in the last kilometre. Olson finally broke his UTMB curse after finishing no better than 12th, 13th and 17th in the CCC over the previous three years.

Behind them, 25-year-old Virgile Moriset (Asics) showed all his class and potential in his first UTMB. The former amateur cyclist, spotted by Asics at the 2024 SaintéLyon, managed his effort perfectly to finish fourth in a highly promising 19:00:23. That result erased the memory of his three DNFs in four races during the 2026 season. Three more Frenchmen made the top 10: Pyrenean runner Gautier Bonnecarrère (La Sportiva) in seventh, Antoine Charvolin (On) in eighth on his first appearance, and the ever-present baker Yannick Noël (Inov8) in ninth.

It took the Americans 20 years to put a man on the top step of the UTMB podium, with Jim Walmsley in 2023. Just three years after that first success, they have produced a second winner and even placed two athletes on the podium this year. They now appear to have mastered the particular demands of this Alpine course.

That kind of persistence may offer some comfort to the day’s biggest disappointments, such as Théo Détienne (Brooks), who said he was in the form of his life but looks set to finish well short of his goals, and Vincent Bouillard (Hoka), forced to drop out after 67 km. It led Julien Chorier to conclude that “at this level of performance, trying to race two 100-milers in such a short space of time and be at the front in both is clearly very difficult,” referring to Bouillard’s Western States victory in late June. GOAT Kilian Jornet is the last athlete to have pulled off that feat, winning the Western States and UTMB in the same summer, and that was back in 2011.

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The women’s race delivered extraordinary emotion, with the long-awaited triumph of France’s Blandine L'Hirondel (Kiprun). World champion in 2022 and winner of the other two UTMB Mont-Blanc finals, the OCC in 2021 and CCC in 2022, as well as the 2025 Grand Raid de la Réunion, she was missing just one victory to complete a kind of Grand Slam of global trail running: the UTMB itself. She had nevertheless finished third in 2023. She has never been selected for the Western States or Hardrock, the two great monuments of American trail running.

She arrived in Chamonix injured (read our interview before the start), and had even been considering ending her career after the Grand Raid de La Réunion. Yet Blandine L'Hirondel pushed right up against her limits in this edition, enduring a painful finish because an iliac artery begins to torment her left leg whenever the race intensity rises.

I didn’t feel like I belonged at the front of the race

Despite two falls on the final descent from La Flégère, the sports physician and gynaecologist made it to the finish through both her ordeal and her dream: winning the UTMB at least once in her life. No French woman had done so since Caroline Chaverot in 2016. “I don’t have the strength left to express my joy or thank this crazy crowd that supported me all the way,” Blandine said in a breathless voice at the finish. “The further the race went, the more I wondered what I was doing at the front. I didn’t feel like I belonged there,” continued the athlete who has always shown a certain lack of self-confidence despite all her success. “I kept telling myself they would catch me eventually.” Fortunately for her, that never happened.

It was probably now or never for Blandine. Ruth Croft (Adidas) had returned to her family in New Zealand in the days before the start, while American Courtney Dauwalter (Salomon) had dropped out early at Lac Combal (67 km).

The absent are always wrong, and their absence does nothing to diminish Blandine L'Hirondel’s performance. She still faced a particularly strong American contingent, led by Rachel Entrekin (Norda). In the spring, Entrekin had overtaken all the men to win the Cocodona 250 outright. There was little chance Blandine would intimidate her. She quickly established herself as the Frenchwoman’s main rival, although L'Hirondel kept her at a respectable distance, with a lead of around 40 minutes at Champex-Lac (127 km).

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The other American, Careth Arnold (Altra), appeared to have a firm grip on third place until compatriot Emily Schmitz (Hoka) entered the picture after daybreak and displaced her from the podium. Schmitz was clearly the stronger and faster runner on the final descent from La Flégère, but her charge came a little too late to challenge for second. Consistent from the start, Rachel Entrekin maintained an even tempo to finish second, 21 minutes behind Blandine L'Hirondel and 1:35 ahead of Schmitz.

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