The clock at the Corso Italia in Cortina d'Ampezzo stopped at 11:45:31. With it, Hannes Namberger reclaimed the course record at the La Sportiva Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120K by UTMB and took his fourth title over the 120-kilometre loop through the Dolomites. His time erased Ben Dhiman's 2025 mark of 11:49:16 by three minutes and forty-five seconds.
A night decided high on the passes
The 120K set off at 23:00 from Cortina under the stars. Namberger moved to the front early and stayed there. The German ran near the record line through the dark hours, tracked by two Italians who knew the terrain. His decisive move came at Col Gallina, the most demanding point of the course, where Andreas Reiterer and Tobias Geiser could not close the gap. Over the final 16 kilometres he pulled clear for good.
Behind him came one of the rarer sights in the sport. Reiterer and Geiser finished together in a tie for second in 11:55:26, just under ten minutes back. Geiser was no stranger to the podium here; he had won the race in 2022. Peter Fraňo of Slovakia took fourth in 12:32:57, and Andreas Rieder of Austria was fifth in 12:41:38. Namberger, by his own account, had emptied himself to hold the front.
"After col Gallina I had nothing in my tank but I went through this, I risk everything."
The step in a long story
Namberger has long owned this race. He had already won at Lavaredo before, and his own run of 11:56 stood for years as the fastest ever recorded on the course. While he raced Western States last year, Ben Dhiman took that record with an 11:49:16 finish. The absence stung. The record he had set was now someone else's.
So the 2026 edition became a return with a purpose. Namberger came back and won for the fourth time, regaining his course record in the process. The margin over the field was wide, the margin over the old record narrow and hard-won. It marks the point where a repeat winner becomes something closer to the defining figure of an event, measured now against his own past times rather than any rival on the start line.
The Dolomites have a way of keeping their champions. Namberger simply keeps coming back to claim them.
