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Smart wearable brand, Amazfit, is making a concerted push into the Australian market, armed with fresh credentials from one of trail running’s highest-profile events.
Amazfit athlete, Ben Dhiman, won the 2026 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) ultra marathon in Chamonix, France, covering 173.6 kilometres with more than 9,700 metres of climbing in a time of 18 hours, 16 minutes and 29 seconds. He wore an Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra on his wrist throughout.
The wearable recorded that Dhiman burned 9,911 calories during the effort, roughly equivalent to three days of caloric intake for an adult male. His heart rate exceeded 170 beats per minute on four separate occasions and his average pace came in at 6 minutes 27 seconds per kilometre.
Amazfit, which is owned by health technology company, Zepp Health, has since published the full dataset from Dhiman’s race as part of a broader effort to position its products alongside the training tools used by elite athletes.
How the race unfolded
Dhiman took the lead shortly after the 40-kilometre mark, but 75 per cent of the course still lay ahead. Long climbs gave way to technical descents and weather conditions shifted, particularly around dusk and dawn.
The American, who trains in France year-round, built his advantage steadily rather than through any decisive early surge. At the 80-kilometre mark he held a lead of around 19 minutes. By 104 kilometres that had grown to 22 minutes, and by 127 kilometres to 28 minutes. In Vallorcine, roughly 20 kilometres from the finish in Chamonix, the second-placed runner was already more than half an hour behind.
His grade-adjusted pace, as calculated by the Cheetah 2 Ultra, was 4 minutes 51 seconds per kilometre, a figure that accounts for the gradient and terrain resistance encountered across a course where 56 per cent of the distance consisted of climbs, with a total elevation gain of 9,686 metres.
“The biggest challenge at UTMB is extreme fatigue. It changes your perception of reality. It makes everything difficult,” Dhiman explained. “That’s why you have to train under high, prolonged loads, repeatedly, so that you become accustomed to making decisions and maintaining efficient movement despite mounting fatigue.”
A long road to the top step
Finishing first among 2,400 runners was not a sudden breakthrough. Dhiman, a 185-centimetre ultramarathoner originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, had built a results sheet that included wins at the MIUT 115K and Trail 100 Andorra in 2024 and victories at the Grand Raid Ventoux 100K and Lavaredo 120K in 2025. He also recorded podium finishes at the Diagonale des Fous and SaintéLyon.
But UTMB itself had been a source of frustration. Dhiman failed to finish the race in both 2023 and 2024. It was not until his third attempt, in 2025, that he completed the course, finishing second in a time of 19 hours, 51 minutes and 37 seconds.
For many athletes, that result would have been enough. Dhiman wanted more.
Speaking at an Amazfit-hosted conversation in Chamonix days before the 2026 race alongside fellow Amazfit athlete, Rod Farvard, Dhiman described the dissatisfaction that drove his return.
“I really didn’t play into any of these dynamics. It felt like I didn’t deserve that top 10 almost,” he recalled of his 2025 race, where he placed ninth. “It was like a massive shock that you could do your own thing and still get top 10 at UTMB, by not blowing up.”
This time, he wanted to be in the mix from the front, influencing the race rather than simply surviving it.
More volume, less speed
Dhiman’s preparation for the 2026 edition followed a structure built around three consecutive training blocks of five to six weeks each, similar in shape to his 2025 build but with significantly more volume.
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In January he logged 107 hours of training. February and March brought 95 and 105 hours respectively. During the final 12 weeks before the race, his training volume sat 30 per cent higher than the corresponding period in 2025. At the same time, he cut the number of high-intensity sessions in half.
“Consistent high volume without intensity was good enough to race fast and I didn’t actually need to run very fast in training to be performing in racing,” Dhiman told the Chamonix audience.
He described the trade-off in mechanical terms: “I wanted more durability in the ultra format and I would accept being more of a diesel engine than somebody who could run really fast uphill.”
The approach was validated at the 90K du Mont Blanc earlier in the season, where Dhiman finished second. He noted that despite carrying fatigue into that race, his pacing data and power output at the finish were among his best ever, confirming that the high-volume, low-intensity model was working.
“I’ve really held off a lot on the temptation to run fast in these last six weeks based off that knowledge,” he added.
A typical training week
July offered a window into what the workload looked like in practice. Dhiman covered around 12,000 metres of elevation gain each week, with sessions including long mountain runs of five to six hours, hilly gravel runs of two to three hours, easy runs on flat terrain of up to 90 minutes and uphill treadmill runs of a similar duration. He also completed up to two strength training sessions per week.
According to the Training Balance feature on the Cheetah 2 Ultra, more than 20 per cent of his preparation consisted of strength training, with the remaining 80 per cent devoted to endurance work.
One of his final hard sessions before the race took him from Chamonix to Courmayeur over 75.17 kilometres, with 4,519 metres of elevation gain, completed in 8 hours 18 minutes at an average heart rate of 134 beats per minute.
What data matters on race day
In the pre-race conversation, both Dhiman and Farvard discussed how they use watch data during competition.
Dhiman described stripping his display back to a single custom screen showing time, distance, elevation and total ascent. He dropped heart rate from his primary view and planned to remove pace as well.
“I keep it so simple. Just distance, elevation and altitude,” he outlined. “I like to know where I’m at at a certain point in the climb. At this point, I know the altitude of every climb.”
Farvard offered a similar philosophy, keeping basic time and elevation data on his main screen but maintaining a secondary page with live pace for flatter, more runnable sections.
“On nice easy terrain I like to see numbers below four minutes per kilometre. So if you see it, it’s like okay, just open the stride up a little more,” Farvard noted. He added that he would glance at heart rate on the first climb to ensure he was not starting too aggressively, but acknowledged that heart rate zones become less reliable as a metric deeper into an ultra-distance event.
Race strategy and the art of patience
Both athletes emphasised a patient, pressure-based approach to racing rather than explosive attacks.
Farvard, reflecting on past editions, pointed to the 2024 race as an illustration of what happens when runners push too hard too early. He described a competitor breaking away at a pace that looked unsustainable, only to be found walking on the subsequent descent.
“I just want to be like gravity. Just want to be constantly putting the pressure on without doing anything too crazy,” Farvard explained.
Dhiman agreed, noting that the winners at UTMB tend to be those who maintain a high, steady output rather than those who surge and fade.
“The longer you can run with the group, the better. If the group is moving well, that’s to your advantage,” he added. “To just try to break them and then be by yourself and then you’re time trialling, that puts you in a much more delicate situation.”
The mental game
When asked what UTMB represented to him, Dhiman framed it as a culmination of years of work.
“This is like the final exam for me. This is actually like the exam that you get after a four-year education. This is my fourth year. This is how you get your degree,” he remarked.
Farvard took a different angle, focusing on execution over outcome.
“It’s about not having any regrets. Every year I step away from this race wishing I did something different and I just want to not feel that,” he reflected.
And at the start line itself, with the runners penned in and the pre-race music building, Dhiman described a small personal ritual: watching his heart rate on the Cheetah 2 Ultra and trying to lower it through controlled breathing.
“I like to just look at my heart rate and see how low I can make it just with my mind, just breathing, to see if I can get to 75 or something. I just try to make it about that, like a little game, and it passes some time,” he shared.
Fueling for ultra distance
The conversation also touched on nutrition. Dhiman described a morning routine built around overnight oats hydrated with leftover coffee, topped with honey and peanut butter. He has increased his protein intake this year, using whey protein twice daily, including mixed into his oats and in an afternoon shake.
Farvard, meanwhile, called himself a “religious smoothie drinker,” blending banana, berries, collagen, milk, almond butter and a green supplement each morning before heading out.
Amazfit’s push into Australia
The data published from Dhiman’s race forms part of Amazfit’s strategy as it builds its presence in the Australian market. The brand, which was established in 2015 and is available in more than 90 countries, counts more than 42 million daily active users globally and has sold more than 200 million devices.
Dhiman’s win at UTMB comes alongside another high-profile result for the brand’s athlete roster: ambassador, Josh Kerr, broke the mile world record.
The Cheetah 2 Ultra, the watch worn by Dhiman during his UTMB victory, retails in Australia for $849. It features up to 33 hours of battery life in trail running mode, a 1.5-inch AMOLED display with sapphire glass, full-colour contour maps, dual-band GPS positioning across six satellite systems and 64GB of onboard storage for offline navigation.
Its trail running mode applies load factor calculations for gradient, terrain resistance and vertical gain, aiming to give runners a more accurate picture of their actual effort across varied terrain.
Beyond the Cheetah 2 Ultra, Amazfit’s Australian lineup includes several other models pitched at different use cases and price points.
The Balance 3, priced at $589, is a flagship training watch aimed at hybrid athletes, featuring dual-band GPS, offline maps and up to 21 days of battery life. The Bip Max, at $159, covers a broader fitness audience with a 2.07-inch AMOLED display, more than 150 sports modes and up to 20 days of battery. The Helio Strap, at $166, is a screen-free tracker focused on recovery and sleep data. The Active 3 Premium, at $239, targets runners with adaptive training plans, GPS navigation and a stainless-steel design with sapphire glass.
All models are available through the Amazfit Australian website at au.amazfit.com and select retailers including Amazon.
Last Updated on September 7, 2026 by Nick Ross
