Ben Dhiman Wins UTMB And Becomes First Person To Run Under 19 Hours

Ben Dhiman moved to the front of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc at La Balme, 41.1 kilometers into a 173.6-kilometer (107.9-mile) race, and led the remaining 132.5 kilometers alone. He reached Chamonix at 2:04 p.m. on Saturday in 18:16:29, the first man to finish the UTMB inside 19 hours.

Which record that breaks depends on who is counting. François D’Haene’s 19:01:54 from 2017 is the fastest winning time the race has produced, and RunMotion, which keeps a progression of the event’s marks, lists it as the men’s record. Dhiman beat it by 45:25. iRunFar uses Jim Walmsley’s 19:37:43 from 2023 instead, on the reasoning that the route is redrawn often enough that a record only means much on a course close to the current one. Dhiman is 1:21:14 inside that one.

The course figures make the case for the time rather than against it. UTMB’s own race database puts D’Haene’s 2017 route at 171.2 kilometers with 10,170 meters of climbing, and Walmsley’s 2023 route at 171 kilometers with 9,963 meters. What Dhiman raced measured 173.6 kilometers with 9,700 meters, after organizers cut the Pyramides Calcaires section on the Italian side and pushed the start back two hours on Friday because of forecast thunderstorms. It was the longest of the three, with the least climbing.

The tightest comparison is Dhiman’s own. He finished second here in 2025 in 19:51:37, over a course the official tracker recorded at 175.4 kilometers and 9,985 meters of climbing, with the same Pyramides Calcaires bypass in place. On Saturday he went 1:35:08 faster over a route 1.8 kilometers shorter, and almost none of that came early. At Les Contamines, 32 kilometers in, he was 3:53 ahead of his 2025 splits; at Courmayeur, 81 kilometers, 31:26; at Champex-Lac, 127.5 kilometers, 1:05:04. He reached Vallorcine with 1:25:31 in hand and finished with 1:35:08. The tracker also credits him with a total of 9 minutes 23 seconds stopped across the whole race, against 13:04 a year ago.

Saturday was Dhiman’s fourth UTMB start. He dropped out in 2023 and again in 2024 before finishing second last year, 32:39 behind Tom Evans, and he arrived in Chamonix this time having run neither Western States nor Hardrock, according to iRunFar’s men’s preview. His two results this year were a fifth place at Transvulcania and a runner-up finish over the 90K du Mont-Blanc.

Baptiste Chassagne, second at the 2024 UTMB, was second again in 18:47:38, 31:09 behind. The finish behind him was the closest of the day. Caleb Olson, the 2025 Western States champion, sat 11th at Col de Voza and eighth leaving Courmayeur, and he was still 6:32 down on Chassagne at La Flégère with 7 kilometers to run. Olson covered that last descent into Chamonix in 29:07 to Chassagne’s 34:53, and finished 46 seconds short of second place in 18:48:24. Virgile Moriset took fourth in 19:00:23.

The race Dhiman won had lost much of its billed field before it started. Kilian Jornet and Walmsley were both out injured, defending women’s champion Ruth Croft withdrew two days before the gun, and Vincent Bouillard, the 2024 men’s winner, and Courtney Dauwalter both stopped at Lac Combal in the dark. When Olson crossed the line at 2:36 p.m. to settle the podium, the tracker listed 368 withdrawals from 2,407 starters, with more than a day of the race still to run. The 2025 edition closed with 827 withdrawals from 2,492.