A new day dawns on another TROY announcement! The runners who find themselves in eighth this year are both TROY newbies whose stories captivated us for very different reasons. The podiums these two athletes landed on truly had us wondering “what is next!” and let’s just say we can’t wait to find out.
Playing catch up on TROY coverage? Find out which runners finished ninth and tenth.
In eighth position this year we have the Icebug’s Tove Alexandersson and Asics’ Ben Dhiman.
Until this year (despite winning a silver medal the 2023 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in the Classic Mountain Race) Tove Alexandersson might have flown under the radar in the trail running world, the talented Swedish athlete has won gold medals at the World Championships in six different sporting disciplines. While Tove is most well known for her prowess in the sport of orienteering, having won thirty six World Championship medals over the past fourteen years, she has also found herself on top of the Skyrunning World Championship podium and in the spring of 2025 won both gold in the Individual race and finished second in the Vertical race at the SkiMountaineering (SkiMo) World Championships. Seemingly destined to make an Olympic quota spot for the upcoming Cortina Winter Olympics, where SkiMo will debut as an event, Sweden came up just short at the final qualifying race earlier this winter sending the relay team from Poland to the winter games instead.
What is extra interesting about Tove’s spot in this years TROY top ten is that Tove broke through with effectively one singular performance. It’s true, sometimes performances are just that good, but in the current era of trail running the depth of an individual’s season often comes into play. In 2025 Tove lined up and won two trail races, on more or less the same course, winning the Canfranc 45-kilometer race on September 6th before lining back up twenty days later to blow apart the field in the Short Trail race at the WMTRC. Tove’s run that day put her 17th overall (in one of the best men’s and women’s fields ever assembled) besting the rest of the women’s field by a staggering 34 minutes. Let’s face it, we are all still thinking about that run. Rumor has it, winning gold this year has made Tove interested in lining up at a few more trail races in the not too distant future – Zegama or Sierre-Zinal in 2026? Let’s hope so!
When Ben Dhiman takes a shot on goal he usually scores, and that’s been true for the past four years, except when it comes to UTMB. An anomaly amongst a sea of podiums. With DNFs in both the 2024 and 2023 editions of the event, UTMB had seemingly become Ben’s white whale. Being a consummate student of the sport it would only be a matter of time before Ben would break through in the race that he’s been studying year over year – completing the loop around the mountain, back to Chamonix.
With his season geared around performing well at the end of August, Ben lined up two early season wins on mountainous courses first at the Grand Raid Ventoux by UTMB 100-kilometer and then the Lavaredo Ultra Trail by UTMB 120-kilometer. We aren’t going to say that a succesful loop around the Mont-Blanc, where Ben finished second, was the highlight of his year because he and his wife welcomed twins earth side only a few short weeks later – but UTMB is a good consolation prize. While selfishly we would love to see Ben race state side (come on Western States), we will keeping a close eye on whichever races he decides to toe the line at in 2026.
Tove and Ben, you have new forever fans – we can’t wait to see which start lines you grace in 2026! Join us back here tomorrow morning to find out which two runners brought it home in seventh position.