Amazfit Wins UTMB 2026, but Garmin and COROS Still Own Most Wrists

Q: Which GPS watch brand wins UTMB most years?

A: None of them, consistently. Four years of research from Jérôme at Montre Cardio GPS now show that Wahoo, Garmin, COROS and Amazfit have each won a UTMB race since 2023, and 2026 hands Amazfit its second win in two years.

The watch data behind this article, including brand counts, GPS distance comparisons, and elevation accuracy, comes from Jérôme’s original research at Montre Cardio GPS. He builds it every year from Strava’s device field, race photos, and downloaded GPX files for the top 30 men and top 20 women, and his work goes well beyond brand counting into full track-by-track GPS comparisons. Full credit for the data goes to him: read his more detailed and original French analysis here.

UTMB, the 100-mile trail race around Mont Blanc, delayed its 2026 start by two hours for thunderstorms and cut the Pyramides Calcaires section from the course. None of that slowed Ben Dhiman down. He won in 18:16:29, the first sub-19-hour finish in the race’s history, with Baptiste Chassagne and Caleb Olson completing an American-French podium behind him (full results at iRunFar). Blandine L’Hirondel won the women’s race outright after 2025 champion Ruth Croft withdrew before the start.

UTMB 2026 Men’s Race

Ben Dhiman won wearing an Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra, Amazfit’s second consecutive UTMB win after supplying Ruth Croft’s Cheetah 2 Ultra for her 2025 women’s win. Garmin equipped 37% of the top 30 (11 watches), COROS 33% (10), Suunto 20% (6), and Amazfit 7% (2). Polar and Apple, both present in prior years, dropped off the top-30 leaderboard entirely.

COROS was the only brand where finishers meaningfully upgraded hardware, with several APEX 4 units in the field. Everyone else raced on older kit: Fenix 6X and Fenix 6 Pro (2019), Fenix 7 and Enduro 2 (2022), Forerunner 955 (2022), Forerunner 965 (2023), Race and Vertical (2023). Drew Holmen finished on a Forerunner 255, rated for 30 hours of GPS battery, plenty for a sub-19-hour finish. Neither the Fenix 8 Pro nor the Forerunner 970 appeared anywhere in the tracked field, despite both having launched well before race day.

Jérôme’s theory for the lack of turnover: at UTMB’s elite pace, battery life stops being the deciding factor, so racers pick hardware they already trust over the watch with the longest runtime on paper. COROS’s APEX 4 is rated at 41 hours in dual-frequency mode, fewer than the VERTIX 2S, yet it appears more often in the field.

UTMB 2026 Women’s Race

Blandine L’Hirondel won wearing a COROS APEX 4. Garmin and COROS ran close among the top 20 (7 and 6 watches respectively), with Suunto on 3 and Amazfit on 1. Last year’s data pointed to smaller-cased watches gaining ground among women. This year reverses that: the Enduro 3 (51mm), VERTIX 2S (50mm) and Race 2 (49mm) all featured.

GPS and Elevation Accuracy

The official race listing puts the 2026 course at 174km with 9,700m of positive elevation; Jérôme’s more precise figure is 173.6km. Watches recorded an average of 171.2km and 9,730m, both close to the official numbers. UTMB’s internally calculated flat (2D) distance for the course is 171.3km, nearly identical to the watch average. The site’s own GPS testing methodology covers the 3D-versus-2D distinction in more depth.

Brand	Avg. Distance	vs 2D Reference (171.3km)
Garmin	171.73km	+0.25%
Suunto	171.40km	+0.06%
COROS	170.73km	-0.33%
Amazfit	170.50km	-0.47%

Suunto lands closest to UTMB’s 2D figure. Amazfit again measures the shortest, consistent with the corner-cutting Jérôme has flagged in his own testing of Amazfit devices.

Brand	Avg. Elevation	vs Official (9,700m)
Garmin	9,936m	+2.43%
Amazfit	9,694m	-0.06%
Suunto	9,689m	-0.11%
COROS	9,581m	-1.23%

Garmin overestimates elevation again, the same pattern Jérôme found in 2025. The overall spread across all watches ran from -300m to +500m against the official 9,700m, roughly in line with the errors covered in the site’s own GPS accuracy hub.

The share of the men’s elite field on AMOLED screens held at 33%, unchanged from 2025.

What the GPX Tracks Show

Older Garmin watches without dual-frequency GNSS, the Fenix 6 and Fenix 6 Pro, degraded visibly in forest and between buildings. The newest generation, Fenix 8 and Enduro 3, produced near-perfect tracks.

COROS showed the same generational split, with one exception: the PACE 3, PACE Pro and VERTIX 2S cohort tracked worse than the older APEX 2 group, and one VERTIX 2S deviated significantly from the course. Suunto’s older 9 Peak Pro, without dual-frequency reception, produced the weakest tracks in its group. The newer Vertical 2 and Race 2 handled open terrain well but struggled more than expected at the Courmayeur aid station, on a different GPS chipset generation from the brand’s older watches.

Amazfit’s three tracked Cheetah 2 Ultra units produced tightly overlapping, consistently accurate tracks, a reversal from Jérôme’s usual finding that Amazfit devices cut corners. His working theory is that someone on Amazfit’s team configured dual-frequency GNSS mode for the sponsored athletes ahead of the race. One course-marking detail emerged from the data: Ben Dhiman ran an unmarked shortcut early in the race before officials taped it off for the runners behind him, a routing quirk rather than a GPS error.

The Bigger Picture

Brand	2023 (Top 30 Men)	2024 (Top 20 Elite Combined)	2025 (Top 30 Men)	2026 (Top 30 Men)
Wahoo	1	0	0	0
Garmin	10	6	8	11
COROS	11	13	12	10
Suunto	5	10	7	6
Polar	1	2	1	0
Apple	1	0	0	0
Amazfit	0	0	2	2

UTMB Women’s Event: Watch Brand Place-Count

Brand	2023 (Top 10 Women)	2024 (Top 20 Elite Combined)	2025 (Top 20 Women)	2026 (Top 20 Women)
Wahoo	0	0	0	0
Garmin	1	6	4	7
COROS	6	13	5	6
Suunto	3	10	5	3
Polar	0	2	0	0
Apple	0	0	0	0
Amazfit	0	0	1	1

Take Out

Amazfit has now won two of the last two UTMB races while supplying a fraction of the field’s watches: two out of thirty men, one out of twenty women. COROS and Garmin still cover most wrists. That split points to two different sponsorship strategies, not one brand overtaking another. COROS builds broad roster depth. Amazfit backs a small number of athletes it believes can win outright, and this year that bet paid off on the fastest UTMB ever run.

If you’re shopping rather than spectating, the best hiking and mountain watch guide and the hiking technology hub cover the buying decisions in more depth than a single race can.

Quick answers

Which GPS watch won UTMB 2026?
Ben Dhiman won the men’s race wearing an Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra, the first sub-19-hour finish in UTMB history. Blandine L’Hirondel won the women’s race wearing a COROS APEX 4.

Which GPS watch brand is most accurate for ultra trail races like UTMB?
UTMB 2026 GPS data puts Suunto closest to the course’s own measured distance. Amazfit recorded the shortest average tracks, and Garmin recorded the largest average elevation gain.

Why doesn't battery life decide which watch UTMB pros wear?
At an 18-to-24-hour elite finishing pace, most current GPS watches comfortably last the race, even older models like the Forerunner 255. Jérôme’s data suggests pros pick hardware they already trust over the watch with the longest runtime on paper.

Further reading: UTMB 2025, UTMB 2024, UTMB 2023.

For the full Amazfit range, accuracy data and Zepp Health analysis: Amazfit sports watch guide. For the COROS range: COROS watches and features guide. For Garmin’s trail and adventure line-up: Garmin Fenix series guide.

Last Updated on 3 September 2026 by the5krunner