Watch: Hans “the Destroyer” Troyer Podiums at CCC

All doubts have been silenced. After flying a little too close to the sun at Western States in June, Hans Troyer rebounded with a third-place finish at CCC, the 100K UTMB World Championship, on Friday evening.

“I think that I got the best out of myself today,” he told Trail Runner at the finish. “I definitely didn’t execute a race perfectly, and I had some issues, but overall I pushed myself hard, and I’m just thrilled that I got through.”

Per the advice of his coach, David Roche, Troyer, 26, went out a little bit more patiently than in Olympic Valley, letting the likes of Frenchman Benjamin Roubiol take the lead over the behemoth Tête de la Tronche climb that kicks off the race and was quite slippery today in the rain, Troyer said. He sat in a pack of seven with compatriot Eli Hemming, Luke Grenfell-Shaw (a cancer survivor from the U.K.), and Thomas Cardin (France) up to the top of Grand Col Ferret at 30K.

That’s when Troyer threw down the hammer, letting his stride open on the 20K descent into Switzerland with Hemming close behind. He led all the way until the climb out of Martigny, Switzerland, a last-minute addition to the race after it was rerouted last night. It was a lot longer than he thought it would be, Troyer said, and he ran out of water while Italy’s Cristian Minoggio powered on with poles.

Nonetheless, Troyer—who, in his first international race ran the whole 108K without poles—wasn’t too deep in the box for some joking around. He mimed using poles as Minoggio passed him.

“I’ve historically kind of trashed on poles just because I have never used them,” he said. “Today I had a lot of opportunities where poles would have been really helpful, so I think I need to practice with them because I just watched people use poles right beside me and make climbing look easy.”

But Troyer was resilient, which is perhaps a theme of his summer. It took him a few weeks to bounce back from the disappointment of DNFing Western States at the river (mile 80), he said—”I had a great opportunity, and I blew it.” But ultimately he channeled that sadness into one hell of a fight on Friday.

And he’s leaving Chamonix with even more variables to tweak. “I still need to be OK with the race feeling easy,” he said.

Once he figures that piece out, along with the poles, watch out world. Although we’ve all been put on notice already.