Amazfit’s UTMB bet on Ben Dhiman just paid off
Ben Dhiman won the 2026 UTMB in 18:16:29, the fastest time ever recorded over the course, in his fourth start after two DNFs and a second place in 2025. He wore an Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra through training and the race.
Twelve months earlier, on the same climbs, Dhiman finished second in a COROS Apex 2. This site flagged the possibility of an Amazfit upset after 2025’s race. It arrived within a year, and with a win.
Organisers won’t recognise 18:16:29 as a course record. The start was delayed two hours for thunderstorms, and the Pyramides Calcaires section was cut from the route, so 2026 wasn’t run on the same course as previous years. RunMotion still lists François D’Haene’s 19:01:54 from 2017 as the men’s course record. Others measure Dhiman against Jim Walmsley’s 19:37:43 from 2023 instead, on the grounds that a course redrawn this often makes older marks the more honest comparison. Dhiman beat both.
From Coros to Amazfit
Amazfit added Dhiman to its athlete roster in July 2026, alongside Italian trail runner Martina Valmassoi, joining Rod Farvard and Ruth Croft on a team built around the Cheetah 2 Ultra. Croft had already won the 2025 UTMB women’s race on an Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro, so Dhiman’s move gives the brand both UTMB titles, albeit over two years.
The four athletes trained together at the Amazfit Hub in Chamonix in race week. In a pre-race interview there, Dhiman and Farvard talked through their approach to race week: Dhiman described leaving his family at home as a deliberate trade of discomfort for focus and recovery, and said he no longer thinks about training, only about remembering what he already did.
What the training data showed
Amazfit’s release of Dhiman’s data shows training volume climbing through the year: 107 hours in January, 95 in February, 105 in March. Across the final 12 weeks, he trained 30% more than over the same period in 2025, while cutting high-intensity sessions in half. In July, the Cheetah 2 Ultra’s Training Balance feature showed 80% endurance training.
One of his last hard sessions was a 75.17km run from Chamonix to Courmayeur with 4,519m of gain, completed in 8:18:14 at an average heart rate of 134bpm.
Race day
Dhiman took the lead at the 41km mark with about three-quarters of the race still to run, and led alone from there. Amazfit’s tracking has his lead at 19 minutes by 80km, 22 minutes by 104km, and 28 minutes by 127km. His heart rate went above 170bpm four times in the first eight hours, against a reported maximum of 185bpm – still pretty high levels for this kind of activity.
Average pace across the race was 6:27/km; grade-adjusted for the climbing, the Cheetah 2 Ultra put it at a creditable 4:51/km. The watch logged an impressive 9,911 calories burned.
Does sponsorship tell you anything about the watch?
No. UTMB’s timing system produced 18:16:29, not the Cheetah 2 Ultra on Dhiman’s wrist. Amazfit paid for that wrist, the same way brands have paid for elite feet and wrists for decades, and the picture of him crossing the line in Chamonix is now worth more to the brand than the sponsorship cost.
This is the third time this year Amazfit has turned a global running record into a same-week data release: Josh Kerr’s mile and Yomif Kejelcha’s half marathon world record both went the same way.
Dhiman fell hard with 10km left and still finished more than 30 minutes clear of the field. No wearable has a metric for that.
Quick answers
What watch did Ben Dhiman wear to win UTMB 2026?
An Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra. He joined Amazfit’s athlete team in July 2026, having worn a COROS Apex 2 for his second-place finish in 2025.
What was Ben Dhiman's winning time at UTMB 2026?
18:16:29 over 174km, the fastest time ever run over the course.
Is Dhiman's UTMB 2026 time a course record?
No. A two-hour delayed start and the removal of the Pyramides Calcaires section mean organisers don’t recognise it as one.
What is Ben Dhiman's UTMB history?
He dropped out in 2023 and 2024, finished second in 2025 wearing a COROS Apex 2, and won in 2026 wearing an Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra.
How did Dhiman change his training for 2026?
He raised volume roughly 30% over the final 12 weeks compared with 2025 and halved his high-intensity sessions, per Amazfit’s Training Balance data.
Source: Amazfit athlete data release and iRunFar’s UTMB 2026 coverage.
Last Updated on 3 October 2026 by tfk the5krunner
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
