01 A new kind of championship
Athletics added a new global event to its calendar in September. The first World Athletics Ultimate Championship was held in Budapest from 11 to 13 September 2026, at the stadium the Hungarian capital built for the 2023 World Championships, now known as the Gyula Zsivotzky National Athletics Centre.
The idea is simple: put the best athletes of the season against each other at the end of the summer, with no heats spread over a week. The meeting ran over three evening sessions with 28 titles to decide. Fields were small, typically between eight and 16 athletes per event, made up of world and Olympic champions, Diamond League winners and athletes selected through the world rankings. Hungary, as host, received a few extra invitations.
There were no medals. Instead there was money: a total prize fund of US$10 million, the largest in the history of the sport. Each individual winner took US$150,000, second place US$75,000 and third US$40,000, while a winning relay team shared US$80,000. For comparison, a world champion in Budapest in 2023 earned US$70,000.
02 Two sprint doubles
The sprints were the story of the weekend. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden of the United States, who won the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay at the 2025 World Championships, won the 100m in a world-leading 10.62 seconds on the Saturday.
A day later she met the Olympic 200m champion, Gabby Thomas, in the 200m final. Thomas had beaten her in the semi-final, but Jefferson-Wooden made up the stagger on Thomas by halfway and won in 21.47. That time put her third on the world all-time list.
Kenny Bednarek matched her. The American won the men's 100m in 9.85 on the Saturday, ahead of the 2025 world champion, Oblique Seville of Jamaica (9.90), and Ronnie Baker (9.93). World Athletics described it as Bednarek's first global title. On the Sunday he added the 200m in a world-leading 19.52, ahead of the Olympic champion, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, who ran 19.76. Bednarek had collected four global 200m silver medals before Budapest.
03 Duplantis, Kerr and the duel that did not happen
Mondo Duplantis arrived with a doubt over his fitness, having pulled out of the Diamond League Final in Brussels with tightness in his leg. In Budapest he cleared every height on his first attempt up to 6.20m, which won the competition, then tried a world record of 6.32m without success. Greece's Emmanouil Karalis pushed him as far as 6.15m.
Organisers had hoped for a 1500m race between Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and World Athletics enlarged the field from 11 to 13 runners to fit them both in. Ingebrigtsen won the 5000m on the opening night in 12:59.24, ahead of Cole Hocker, but then withdrew from the 1500m, saying he could not race again so soon after his Achilles surgery.
Kerr won the 1500m anyway. The Briton went to the front with 300m left and finished in 3:29.35, holding off the 20-year-old Australian Cameron Myers by 0.33 seconds. It was three hundredths faster than the time he ran to win the world title in the same stadium in 2023.
04 Other winners, and what comes next
Other champions included Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who came from last to first in the final 125m to win the women's 400m in 49.07, and Busang Collen Kebinatshipi of Botswana, who won the men's 400m in 43.39. Alison dos Santos of Brazil won the 400m hurdles in 45.98, ahead of Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm. Ja'Kobe Tharp beat his fellow American Cordell Tinch by one hundredth of a second in the 110m hurdles. Germany's Merlin Hummel won the hammer with 81.46m, and the United States won the mixed 4x100m relay, which made its global senior championship debut.
The Ultimate Championship is planned as a biennial event. The next edition is due in 2028, two months after the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Before then, the traditional World Athletics Championships go to Beijing in 2027.
Whether a meeting without medals can earn the status of a true championship will take a few editions to judge. The first one, at least, drew a sell-out crowd of 20,000 on its opening night, produced two sprint doubles and delivered some of the fastest times of the year.
