Blandine L’Hirondel makes history, Ben Dhiman wins UTMB and inclusion takes centre stage as HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc 2026 closes in Chamonix.
HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc 2026 finished in Chamonix with the sort of Sunday the event rather likes to manufacture: exhausted runners, a noisy French crowd and enough human drama to make the stopwatch feel briefly secondary.
Blandine L’Hirondel delivered the headline performance in the women’s UTMB, Ben Dhiman won the men’s race, and a week spanning France, Italy and Switzerland ended with inclusion providing some of its most important stories.
L’Hirondel Adds Another Line to UTMB History
The main event brought emphatic victories for L’Hirondel and Dhiman, but the Frenchwoman’s result carried an extra historical charge. Her win made her the second woman, and the third person overall, to have won all three UTMB World Series Finals.
It was a fitting climax to a finals programme that had already produced tight racing and sizeable swings in momentum. Lauren Gregory won the women’s OCC after a final sprint, while Frédéric Tranchand took the men’s title.
At CCC, Yngvild Kaspersen completed an impressive comeback to win the women’s race, with Cristian Minoggio taking the men’s victory for Italy.
By the time UTMB arrived, there was little need to manufacture jeopardy. A mountain race extending through two days and two nights tends to bring its own.
The Week Belonged to More Than the 100-Mile Race
The programme had begun days earlier with PTL, ETC, MCC, TDS and YCC, each asking a rather different question of its runners.
Brothers Candide and Jules-Henri Gabioud, racing as AlpsXperience, won PTL. Sarah Vieuille and Remy Brassac took TDS honours; Marie Nivet and Taylor Stack won ETC; Noémie Lepoutre and Gatien Airiau prevailed in MCC. The YCC junior races went to Charlotte Bringuier and Isak Drøpping.
That breadth matters. UTMB is inevitably the magnet, but the surrounding races are increasingly part of the event’s identity rather than decorative furniture around the 100-miler.
A Finish That Stretched Deep Into Sunday
The final UTMB finisher reached the arch in Chamonix at 5.43pm after 45 hours and 53 minutes of effort. The supplied event figures record 1,681 finishers crossing the line on Sunday, August 30.
Those numbers give the week scale. The more revealing details came from the people for whom merely reaching Chamonix carried a significance that no placing could quite capture.
Inclusion Produced the Week’s Defining Stories
Jonathan Naboulet and Team Trail Sans Limite became the first Joëlette team to officially complete UTMB within the time limits, supported by 42 guides. Julien Veysseyre became the first athlete with a transtibial amputation to finish UTMB using a prosthetic leg, while Fanny Barbara completed the race for a second time after having undergone the complete removal of her left lung.
Naboulet’s description of the finish was less about rugged individualism than the opposite:
“We had built up such a lead on the first day that we were also able to take care of ourselves, look after one another and make sure we could reach that finish line. It was fantastic, a moment of joy and happiness. As in any race, there are more difficult moments, but I had 42 people around me, with so much courage and strength. They are more than friends, they are family. And I love Blandine, she’s my godmother, someone very close to me with whom I share many moments. Congratulations to her on winning, and thank you for supporting us so strongly.”
The HOPE project, run with the Marathon des Sables, added another strand. Four wheelchair athletes covered most of the UTMB course in an unofficial relay designed to test the adaptations required for wheelchair users on the trails.
Across the eight races, 58 athletes with disabilities started, compared with 37 in 2025 — a rise of 57 per cent.
UTMB Leaves Chamonix With a Wider Story
The closing ceremony and volunteer parade supplied the formal punctuation. The more persuasive ending was already there.
L’Hirondel had a landmark victory. Dhiman had the men’s UTMB title. Hundreds of other stories had unfolded at less glamorous speeds, some involving podiums, some involving prosthetics, wheelchairs or 42 people making sure one chair kept moving towards Chamonix.
For a sport obsessed with going further, the most interesting progress at HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc 2026 may have been measured in who got to come along.
