‘It Was Magic’: American Ben Dhiman Dominates UTMB to Become the First Runner in History to Break 19 Hours

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 when he finished 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 33,000 feet 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—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 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 U.S. 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 StartedNothing about the race started easy. Rainstorms forced a two-hour delay of the planned start from 5:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. on Friday evening in Chamonix, and that meant nearly 2,400 runners went straight into darkness.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.JEFF PACHOUD//Getty ImagesDhiman kept extending his lead to 20 minutes at the 50-mile 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 8,300-foot summit of the Grand Col Ferret into Switzerland at mile 64.5 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 prerace favorites Josh Wade (United Kingdom), Rod Farvard (U.S.), Canyon Woodward (U.S.), and Chris Myers (U.S.). Three of the preeminent favorites and past winners, Tom Evans (U.K.), Jim Walmsley (U.S.), and Kilian Jornet (Spain), withdrew in the days before the race.But none of those runners on their best day could have likely kept up with Dhiman on Friday and Saturday.While others were slowing from fatigue, Dhiman kept extending his lead through Switzerland, reaching the 80-mile 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 15-mile 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.”Becoming a RunnerDhiman ran some as a teen, but soccer was his biggest passion at Sycamore High School in Cincinnati, where he earned all-state honors. He even played for two years at Emory University in Atlanta, but then he walked away from organized sports entirely (and a job at Chipotle) to go hike the 2,200-mile Continental Divide Trail in 2012.Being immersed in nature for weeks on end was a life-changing moment for Dhiman, and it inspired him to move west and earn a degree in sustainable foods and bioenergy systems from Montana State. He also ran his first 50K trail runs in 2014 and hiked the 3,000-mile Continental Divide Trail in 2016. He caught the ultrarunning bug almost by accident, waiting tables in Silverton, Colorado, when Hardrock 100 runners started walking through the door on race week.Dhiman walked across Nepal in 2018, a 745-mile jaunt that proved just as demanding as anything he'd tackled in the U.S., only this time the Himalayas were the obstacle. His mountaineering background and navigational instincts got him from one end of the country to the other.Not long after, he met his wife, Ophélie, while traveling in India. Her father lives on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, and she convinced Dhiman to race Le Grand Raid de la Réunion, one of the world’s toughest 100-mile ultra races with 34,000 feet of elevation gain.They eventually settled in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, at the foot of the Pyrenees. Dhiman, though, couldn't work—regulations barred him from holding a job during his first two years in the country. Instead, he sank his time into running and parenting—the couple now has three young sons—and also earned a contract with Asics to become a professional trail runner.How It EndedAlthough 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 5-mile 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 Williams 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 favorite athlete. To me it's still an honor to second. There was no touching him today, so I still feel like I was the best of the rest of the field.”Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, The Chicago Tribune, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.