UTMB 2026 Results: What Happened in Chamonix¶
The 2026 UTMB was scheduled to start at 5:45 p.m. on Friday, August 28. A thunderstorm was forecast for the massif at almost exactly that hour, so organizers pushed the start back two hours to 7:45 p.m. On race morning they also cut the Pyramides Calcaires section, the most technical and exposed part of the course, on the Italian side, and sent runners along a valley route instead.
Race director Isabelle Viseux-Poletti, speaking in French, said that shifting the start of their flagship race was not a simple choice, but that faced with a confirmed storm risk, runner safety was not up for discussion.
That reroute is why the two headline times below are not course records, and it is the first thing to understand about this year's results.
The loop itself: about 174 kilometers on paper and 173.6 as measured this year, roughly 107 miles, around the Mont Blanc massif through France, Italy, and Switzerland. Climbing is given as 9,700 meters by UTMB and more than 9,900 by iRunFar. Either way, around 32,000 feet.
The men's race¶
Ben Dhiman won in 18:16:29. No man had ever gone under 19 hours at UTMB. Three did it on the same day, and the whole top ten finished under 20.
Dhiman is American, lives in the French Pyrenees, and was second here last year. In his pre-race interview he said he had decided climbing was his weakness and had done 30% more of it this year than at the same point last season. He took the lead before 40 kilometers and was never headed.
Afterward he said: "I didn't give the course any respect today. I just pushed as hard as I could and yeah, sometimes that works."
Second came down to a sprint through the streets of Chamonix. Baptiste Chassagne had held the place for most of the race, but Caleb Olson moved up from eighth at Courmayeur, taking positions at nearly every checkpoint, and closed to within a minute on the final descent. Chassagne held on by 46 seconds.
2026 UTMB men's results
| Runner | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ben Dhiman | 18:16:29 |
| 2 | Baptiste Chassagne | 18:47:38 |
| 3 | Caleb Olson | 18:48:24 |
| 4 | Virgile Moriset | 19:00:23 |
| 5 | Joaquín López | 19:06:48 |
| 6 | Hannes Namberger | 19:13:51 |
| 7 | Gautier Bonnecarrère | 19:23:16 |
| 8 | Antoine Charvolin | 19:40:33 |
| 9 | Yannick Noël | 19:51:42 |
| 10 | Jean-Philippe Tschumi | 19:58:24 |
Fourth place deserves a second look. Virgile Moriset came in with three DNFs already this year and was sitting 20th at 68 kilometers. He spent the entire second half moving forward and finished fourth.
The women's race¶
Blandine L'Hirondel won in 21:54:49, the first time a woman has broken 22 hours at UTMB. The win made her the second woman, and the third person overall after Ruth Croft and Xavier Thevenard, to have won UTMB, CCC, and OCC. She finished 26th overall.
She led early, ran level with Rachel Entrekin through the first 67 kilometers, then pulled away after Courmayeur using what iRunFar's coverage described as her deep knowledge of those trails. She took a bad fall late and limped the final descent into Chamonix, and still won by 21 minutes.
Entrekin finished second in 22:15:54 on her UTMB debut, after spending the month before the race running laps of the course. Emily Schmitz, who lives in the Chamonix valley and was 20th at CCC last year, ran a strong second half and took third in 22:17:28, 94 seconds behind Entrekin.
2026 UTMB women's results
| Runner | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blandine L'Hirondel | 21:54:49 |
| 2 | Rachel Entrekin | 22:15:54 |
| 3 | Emily Schmitz | 22:17:28 |
| 4 | Careth Arnold | 23:05:20 |
| 5 | Jazmine Lowther | 23:21:55 |
| 6 | Katarzyna Dombrowska | 23:27:34 |
| 7 | Lucy Bartholomew | 23:44:29 |
| 8 | Antonina Iushina | 23:49:58 |
| 9 | Anne Cécile Thévenot | 24:02:00 |
| 10 | Anne-Sofie Pollestad | 24:04:56 |
Careth Arnold finished fourth having run Hardrock less than 50 days earlier, where she was second. Jazmine Lowther was 14th at Courmayeur, half an hour out of fifth place, and finished fifth.
About those records¶
Both winning times were the fastest ever run at UTMB. Neither is a course record, because the Pyramides Calcaires reroute means it was not the standard course. The same section was skipped in 2025 and in 2017.
The records that still stand are Jim Walmsley's 19:37:43 from 2023 and Katie Schide's 22:09:31 from 2024. Dhiman and L'Hirondel both ran faster than those marks this year, on a different route.
Who was not there¶
Ruth Croft, the defending champion, withdrew the Wednesday before the race, writing on Instagram that her "heart and mind want to be elsewhere."
Tom Evans, the 2025 men's winner, withdrew in mid-August after dropping from Hardrock. Jim Walmsley and Kilian Jornet both pulled out about a week before the start with injuries following Western States. Katie Schide was out with a foot injury.
Courtney Dauwalter started and dropped at Lac Combal, in the dark on the Italian side, along with Vincent Bouillard about thirteen minutes apart. Neither has said publicly why. By early Saturday morning, 21 of the hundred lowest bib numbers were already out of the race.
The rest of the week¶
CCC (Friday, 108 km) had its course changed three times. A landslide forced a reroute between La Fouly and Praz de Fort, a pre-start change sent runners through Martigny and skipped the Bovine hut, and a mid-race change cut the La Flégère climb. Cristian Minoggio, 42, who works as a dam keeper, won in 10:21:48. Yngvild Kaspersen won the women's race in 12:01:14 to become the first two-time women's CCC champion, having been down in the field earlier in the race and still twenty minutes off the lead at halfway.
OCC (Thursday) produced the finish of the week. Lauren Gregory ran down the long-time leader inside the final 800 meters to win in 6:08:07, three seconds ahead of Naomi Lang. Frédéric Tranchand led the men's race from 7 kilometers and won in 5:10:08, France's first OCC win since 2016.
TDS (Monday, 148 km) was the hard one. Cold overnight rain and fog, and only 715 of 1,290 starters finished. Rémy Brassac won in 19:28:43 and Sarah Vieuille won the women's race in 22:08:16, ninth overall. Davide Rivero crossed the line third and took a 45-minute penalty for an unauthorized pack change, dropping him to sixth.
MCC went to Gatien Airiau and Noémie Lepoutre. ETC was won by Taylor Stack, the first American to win it, and Marie Nivet. PTL, the 300-kilometer team event, saw the Swiss brothers Jules-Henri and Candide Gabioud first home in 89:00:49, the fifth time in five attempts they have been first across.
Two rule changes worth knowing¶
Red headlamps. New for 2026, UTMB runners had to carry two headlamps, one with a red mode, and use red light for the six or seven kilometers through the Réserve des Contamines-Montjoie around kilometer 40, to avoid disturbing nocturnal wildlife. Runners had to demonstrate the red mode at bib pickup.
Doping controls doubled, and extended for the first time to all eight races and every category, including age-group and recreational entrants. This follows Joyline Chepngeno losing her 2025 OCC title, after a positive test at Sierre-Zinal voided all her results from that date.
The part of the results nobody puts in the headline¶
2,407 runners started UTMB. 1,681 finished. That is a finish rate of about 70%, and it means more than seven hundred people spent a year getting to that start line and did not get to the arch.
The last finisher was Akihiro Suzuki of Japan, in the 55-59 category, at 45:53:17. Two nights out there, and he finished.
Most drops happened at Arnouvaz, Courmayeur, and La Fouly, deep in the race. But 59 runners were out by Les Contamines at 32 kilometers and another 57 by Les Chapieux at 52.
TDS was harder still: 55% finished. OCC was 80%, CCC about 77%.
Two finishes that were not about time¶
Sally McRae ran TDS and finished in 39:10:08. She had run Badwater 135 four weeks earlier.
She posted afterward that she fell hard enough to snap her poles, in her words, into four pieces. She described her shin as looking like there was a softball inside it, and said there was no reason to see a doctor about it. Her caption: "You are so much stronger than you realize- sometimes you have to walk through a dark valley to experience it."
Andy Glaze finished UTMB in 41:11:33, at the end of a summer he stacked on purpose. Last Soul Ultra on August 14. Leadville on August 22, finishing in 27:52:20. UTMB six days after that.
One note if you go looking him up: utmb.world currently shows his 2026 race as a DNF. The official LiveTrail timing system has him through all 27 checkpoints and across the finish mat, at 41:11:33, ranked 1137th. Where the discrepancy comes from is not clear, and it may well be corrected by the time you read this, but the timing system is the record.
We are not going to grade either of those days. Both went out, both had the race go sideways, and both stayed until it was over.
Common questions¶
Q: Who won UTMB 2026?¶
Ben Dhiman of the United States won the men's race in 18:16:29. Blandine L'Hirondel of France won the women's race in 21:54:49.
Q: Was a course record set at UTMB 2026?¶
No. Both winning times were the fastest ever run at the race, but a weather reroute around the Pyramides Calcaires meant it was not the standard course. The records still belong to Jim Walmsley at 19:37:43 and Katie Schide at 22:09:31.
Q: Why did UTMB 2026 start late?¶
A thunderstorm was forecast to hit the massif at the scheduled 5:45 p.m. start. Organizers pushed it to 7:45 p.m. and rerouted the most exposed section of the course.
Q: What was the UTMB 2026 finish rate?¶
About 70%. Of 2,407 starters, 1,681 finished. TDS was the hardest of the week at roughly 55%.
Q: How long is the UTMB course?¶
Roughly 173 kilometers, about 107 miles, with close to 9,700 meters of climbing, near 32,000 feet, through France, Italy, and Switzerland. Published figures vary slightly by source, and the 2026 route was shortened by a few kilometers.
Q: Did any Americans make the podium?¶
Four. Caleb Olson was third in the men's race, and Rachel Entrekin and Emily Schmitz went second and third in the women's. Ben Dhiman, who won, is American and lives in France.
Takeaways¶
- Ben Dhiman ran 18:16:29, the fastest time in the race's history and the first under 19 hours. Two other men also went under 19 the same day.
- Blandine L'Hirondel ran 21:54:49, the first women's sub-22, and became the second woman to win all three World Series Finals races.
- Neither counts as a course record. A storm pushed the start back two hours and the most technical section was cut.
- 1,681 of 2,407 starters finished, the last of them at 45:53:17.
- Rachel Entrekin took second on her UTMB debut after a month running the course. That story is worth its own read: do you need speed work for ultras?
Also worth your time: when to quit an ultra and the crew and pacer guide.
Your own race is the one that matters¶
NavRun reads the running already in your history and shows you what your goal race asks of you, aid station by aid station, with the cutoff math beside it.
Results from iRunFar and the official LiveTrail timing system, with OCC, CCC and TDS results from the same sources. Runner comments quoted from their own public posts.