Olympic champions Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Letsile Tebogo, Julien Alfred and Ethan Katzberg of Canada are among the first 26 athletes to qualify automatically for the new World Ultimate Championships, to take place for the first time on Sept. 11-13, 2026 at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest.
The three-day meet, announced a year ago, will take place every two years (in non-world championships/Olympic years) and carries a prize purse of US$10 million–the largest prize purse for a single meet–with winners in each event pocketing $150,000.
The countdown is ON 🔥
3 days. 28 finals. 360+ star athletes 🌟
No heats. No second chances. Just the ultimate battle to determine the champion of champions 💪
👉 Swipe to learn all the key info on next year’s Ultimate Championship in Budapest 💥#UltimateChamp
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) April 29, 2025
World Athletics created the event, which is offering more prize money than any other international meet, to bring more attention and fans to the sport of track and field.
Prize money will be as follows for individual events:
1st: US$150,000
2nd: $75,000
3rd: $40,000
4th: $25,000
5th: $16,000
6th: $14,000
7th: $12,000
8th: $10,000
9th: $9,000
10th: $8,000
11th: $7,000
12th: $6,000
13th: $5,000
14th: $4,000
15th: $3,000
16th: $2,000
Winners of the mixed 4x100m and 4x400m relays will receive $80,000, with prize money down to eighth place.
World Athletics announces new ultimate championship event in 2026
The list also includes Olympic champions Faith Kipyegon, Noah Lyles, Gabby Thomas, Keely Hodgkinson, Cole Hocker, Beatrice Chebet, Mondo Duplantis and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Some of these athletes also recently competed at the inaugural Grand Slam Track event in Jamaica, which awarded winners US$100,000 each.
Gold medallists at this year’s World Athletics Championships, to take place Sept. 13-21 in Tokyo, as well as winners of this year’s Diamond League Finals (scheduled for Aug. 27 and 28 in Zurich) will also qualify automatically.
The meeting will consist of a series of three evenings of two semi-finals and finals among Olympic, world and Diamond League champions, with no heats; the top four from each semi-final will advance to the final. The 1,500m, 5,000m and relays will be run as straight finals. The meet will include mixed 4x100m and 4x400m relays, but no single-sex relays.
For more information on the World Ultimate Championships, click here.
