In the first 30 km of the race, Dhiman deliberately kept himself in the lead group. He moved with the pack and even chatted with other runners,The pre-race plan was to stay patient and save his best for later.。

At the 32 km checkpoint, Baptiste Chassagne still passed first with a slim lead; Dhiman, Zach Miller, Vincent Bouillard and others were all within a minute, and it was far from time to make a decisive move.

But Les Contamines changed all that.

Dhiman's crew member Katxi had worked with him for four races. The two repeatedly practiced their aid-station routine to minimize service time. In 2026 their operation at Les Contamines was extremely quick. After leaving the aid station, Dhiman found himself out front.

He didn't immediately accelerate; he simply kept a normal rhythm on the flat sections, assuming the runners behind would quickly close that small gap.

But nobody came, and Dhiman couldn't stop to wait.

By Notre-Dame-de-la-Gorge, around 36 km, he officially began to take control of the race, with a gap of a few dozen seconds growing into minutes.

Dhiman didn't immediately push the race to the limit. He watched the situation until the descent toward Les Chapieux — a section he likes and that suits fast running.At the 52 km mark, Chassagne was already 7 minutes behind.

Leading by himself gave Dhiman the greatest freedom.。

When running with others, athletes are easily pulled along by their rivals' pace. Alone at the front, he could decide how to handle each section based on his knowledge of the course and his body's immediate feedback:

If he pushed a downhill a little harder he might gain two more minutes; holding back slightly on the next climb could avoid an early blow-up.

That's also the true meaning of his afterward comment that he "didn't give the course any respect." It wasn't about disrespecting Mont Blanc or forgetting the cost of 174 km, but about treating it boldly, as if racing a much shorter distance.

But the other side of that freedom is vulnerability.

Runners in the lead pack can watch each other and rely on their rivals to ride out the lows. A solo leader has no reference points; night and fatigue amplify every doubt.

He didn't initially push himself to increase the gap, yet the margin kept growing throughout the race.

After leaving Les Contamines, runners entered the most remote section of the course. The following 40 to 50 km were mostly run in darkness. For many competitors this is the part of the 174 km course most likely to trigger anxiety; Dhiman, however, said it was "very beautiful" and his favorite section.

In previous years, when descending from Col De La Seigne the runners' lights usually formed a continuous line; this year, there was a huge black gap between the leading light and the others.

Because Pyramides Calcaires was removed, the subsequent descent was easier to run than on the standard route; knowing the same adjustment was made last year, he pushed hard.

At night, when passing Col Du Bonhomme the race required runners to switch their headlamps to red light to reduce the impact of white light on marmots; under the red glow the mountain trail became blurred.

Dhiman later said that he gradually stopped trying to see the path clearly and instead began to feel it, letting go of control and allowing his feet to choose where to land.

It became the microcosm of his whole race: on a day that meant everything to him, he didn't mechanically execute data and plans, but instead let instincts, built up over years, take over.

After dawn,More spectators lined the course, but the information wasn’t necessarily clearer: some told him he was an hour ahead, others said the chasers were only two minutes back.

The ASICS team stationed staff along the course to give runners more reliable gap reports and moral support. The system also handled ad-hoc communication: when Dhiman’s pole snapped during the race, the message was relayed ahead so the next aid station could prepare a replacement.

He admitted he probably asked about the gaps too often.

Even as his lead continued to grow, he still felt vulnerable.At one point, when his team told him he’d been closed to by roughly two minutes, his brain instantly interpreted it as, “That’s it, I’m falling apart.” It wasn’t true, but the race brain is hard to quiet when it wants to catastrophize.

At the top of Grand Col Ferret, when Dhiman heard he was about 22 minutes ahead, he made an expression the spectators couldn’t read. Was it “Am I going too fast?” or “This lead is incredible?”

His answer was the latter: 22 minutes was indeed satisfying.

Satisfaction didn’t mean relaxation. UTMB was still long, but Dhiman trusted his running ability for unromantic reasons: he’d accumulated enough kilometers in training, so his legs should hold.

Courmayeur was further proofDhiman arrived at the aid station alone after 7 hours 50 minutes, looking calm and able to chat with the crew; after a two-minute adjustment he set off again.

Chassagne arrived only about 16 minutes after he left. By that point, the others seemed to be fighting only for second place.

In 2023 and 2024 Dhiman didn’t finish UTMB. In 2025 he finally reached the finish and took second. 2026 was his fourth start.

From two DNFs to second, and then to winning in the fastest time in history, he summed up the most important change as “maturity.”

First wasphysiological maturityHe has grown increasingly accustomed to high mountains and UTMB terrain, and can switch more efficiently between long climbs and descents.

During the 2026 build-up he increased his climbing training by about 30% compared with the same period the previous year.

Previously, Dhiman viewed climbing as a relative weakness; that year he placed fifth at Transvulcania, second at Marathon du Mont-Blanc 90K, then arrived at UTMB.

The race results showed he was faster than before on almost every section.

Dhiman has a summary of training that sounds overly simple:Training, of course, contains countless details, but from the broadest perspective, more training usually means better performance.

However,he added a more interesting remark: not only work on your weaknesses, but also train the parts that make you happy.

He loves climbing. Although he grew up in Cincinnati, USA, and as a child had hardly ever seen real mountains—so he had no natural upbringing for mountain sports—uphill running later became his favorite skill. Increasing his training volume by 30% was both about fixing a weakness and repeatedly doing something he genuinely wanted to do.

His training was no longer a choice between "feel" and "data."On daily runs he lets his body decide where it wants to go, but the week's training still has a clear structure. This is a system he gradually built himself.

With greater maturity he learned to reduce the intensity of some sessions. The goal for 2026 wasn't to hone his form razor-sharp, but to make the body sufficiently durable. For a 100-mile race, an overly sharp knife can break too soon.

Mental maturity was equally important.

Ability gets a person into the spotlight first; experience hadn't yet taught him how to handle pressure, failure, and losing control. Only by actually going through those situations will steadiness slowly catch up with ability.

In 2026 we saw a completely different Dhiman: his brow no longer furrowed, he sweated less than the runners around him, and he appeared unusually calm from the start of the race.

Dhiman himself noticed that after a climb some rivals' legs were completely soaked with sweat while he still felt comfortable.

In the past, he had been the one breathing too heavily and sweating too much. Now, he was inwardly calm.

From the data, Dhiman's second half was no longer in doubt. Around Vallorcine he led by more than half an hour. But 174 km won't absolve the leader's final reckoning just because the winner is about to be decided.

The climb to La Flégère is one of the course's final, brutal tests.It’s followed by a sustained descent littered with rocks and roots.

Dhiman likes the final downhill; what truly tormented him was the earlier climb. By then his mind had gone fuzzy, the pain kept intensifying, and he even took a fall.

At the moment he was about to win UTMB, the thought that crossed his mind wasn’t the trophy but: "I hate my life."

He said that in ultra-distance races there’s always a moment when you question why you’re doing this.

The next day his quadriceps, triceps and hands ached badly. Long hours using poles meant the pain didn’t stay confined to his legs. He called it "the best kind of ache": pushing to the limit, succeeding, then feeling the marks it leaves across your whole body.

After entering Chamonix there was about one kilometer to the finish. Crowds lined both sides of the street and every camera followed him. But Dhiman couldn’t immediately switch out of race mode. He was still exhausted and wanted it to be over. He also reminded himself not to take any kilometer for granted and not to simply try to burn through the distance.

He could feel the weight of the moment and the energy around him, yet he found it hard to immediately form a deeper connection with it.

On the live broadcast he kept that restrained, almost calm face. It wasn’t until about 100 meters before the final bend that his expression suddenly opened. He broke into a huge smile, looked up briefly, as if finally allowing the victory into his body.

If there was ever a moment to savor the race, the window was now—because it was all about to end.

Before becoming a professional trail runner, Dhiman was a long-distance hiker. At 20 he walked into the wilderness and there confirmed one thing:When he was outdoors, especially in the mountains, he felt closest to his true self.

From then on, many of his life choices were made to get closer to that feeling.

He settled in the French Pyrenees, training, living and moving in the mountains; he didn’t see trail running as a new career that severed him from his past, but rather as a faster extension of that hiking life.

Thus, even after four years chasing the UTMB title, he says what truly drives him isn’t winning UTMB, but becoming an athlete capable of winning UTMB.

That distinction matters. The trophy only appears at the finish; the process of becoming that person happens in the days before. He loves the chase, he loves the act of "doing" itself. Compared with standing at the center of every camera in Chamonix, being alone in the mountains late at night feels more like the real him.

This winter he wrote: ""If you want to win, you have to be crazier than everyone else"。”

He believes you can find a bit of madness in every UTMB champion’s training, because top athletes are always tempted to “do a little more.” Athletes are like artists in one respect: they must trust that near‑mad streak of talent inside them and be willing to follow it.

But Dhiman in 2026 also proved,the kind of useful madness is not chaotic overexertion.。

It requires years of failures to provide perspective, structured training to build the body, and psychological maturity to set limits. Only then can someone who unexpectedly leads at 36 km have the ability to turn a sudden situation into a victory that holds to the finish.

After winning UTMB, is Dhiman ready to end his relationship with the race?

His answer is very clear: no.

He can’t imagine not coming back, because he loves this place. Even after running 18 hours 16 minutes 29 seconds, he’s still drawn to the challenge and wants to continue being part of UTMB’s ongoing progression.

He even wants to see a UTMB completely different from 2026: not one person leading for long stretches, but a lead group that stays together into the later stages and, like this edition’s OCC women’s race, decides the champion in a sprint.

In 2026, the race behind him already showed signs of that.

Chassagne held second for much of the latter stages, but Olson charged from eighth at Courmayeur:

up to seventh at 87 km, sixth at 94 km, fifth at 99 km, fourth at 104 km, and after 155 km completed his pass on Joaquín López. By La Flégère he had cut the gap to Chassagne to under seven minutes; on the final descent the two were at one point less than a minute apart. In the end, second and third were separated by only 46 seconds.

On the same day, the men’s top three all finished within 19 hours, and the top ten within 20 hours. Dhiman said this shows more and more athletes are “figuring out” how to run UTMB well.

A single overly quick run through an aid station gave him a race that suited him perfectly: solitude, judgement, descents, night, and complete trust in his instincts.

Perhaps the reason he wants to return is precisely that the next time won’t unfold the same way.