500 days to go: Final Championship finals rundown and certified athletes revealed
The primary 26 certified athletes have been named and the distribution of finals has been confirmed to kick off the 500-day countdown for the World Athletics Final Championship.
Three days, 28 occasions, some 360 star athletes and one record-setting prize pot. All eyes will likely be on Budapest’s Nationwide Athletics Centre on 11-13 September 2026, when the world’s best will settle the controversy.
FINALS BY SESSION
Within the battle to find out the champion of champions, the world’s finest athletes will conflict in 28 occasions throughout three action-packed periods of competitors.
The programme will characteristic ladies’s and males’s competitors within the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m, excessive hurdles, 400m hurdles, pole vault, excessive soar, lengthy soar and javelin, in addition to the ladies’s triple soar, males’s hammer throw, and combined 4x100m and 4x400m.
Each second counts. Every session will likely be stacked with finals* – no heats, no easing in.
On the observe, the semifinals will star eight athletes, and solely the highest 4 in every will make it by means of to the ultimate. The 1500m, 5000m and relay races will likely be straight finals – no second probabilities.
THE FINALS:
Friday 11 September• Males’s 5000m• Ladies’s 100m hurdles• Males’s 110m hurdles• Ladies’s excessive soar• Males’s pole vault• Ladies’s lengthy soar• Males’s hammer throw• Blended 4x100m relay• Blended 4x400m relay
Saturday 12 September• Ladies’s 100m• Males’s 100m• Ladies’s 800m• Ladies’s 1500m• Ladies’s 400m hurdles• Males’s 400m hurdles• Ladies’s pole vault• Males’s lengthy soar• Ladies’s javelin throw
Sunday 13 September• Ladies’s 200m• Males’s 200m• Ladies’s 400m• Males’s 400m• Males’s 800m• Males’s 1500m• Ladies’s 5000m• Males’s excessive soar• Ladies’s triple soar• Males’s javelin throw
Three periods of high-octane motion, every of about three hours in length. The Final Championship will likely be a continuous passion-fuelled pageant of observe and area.
OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS: QUALIFIED
As the top of the 2026 observe and area season, the Final Championship will pit world champions and Olympic champions towards Wanda Diamond League winners and the 12 months’s finest performing athletes, to crown the final word champion.
Twenty-six athletes have already mechanically certified as reigning particular person Olympic champions:
• 100m: Julien Alfred (LCA) and Noah Lyles (USA)• 200m: Gabby Thomas (USA) and Letsile Tebogo (BOT)• 400m: Marileidy Paulino (DOM) and Quincy Corridor (USA)• 800m: Keely Hodgkinson (GBR) and Emmanuel Wanyonyi (KEN)• 1500m: Religion Kipyegon (KEN) and Cole Hocker (USA)• 5000m: Beatrice Chebet (KEN) and Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR)• 100m/110m hurdles: Masai Russell (USA) and Grant Holloway (USA)• 400m hurdles: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA) and Rai Benjamin (USA)• Excessive soar: Yaroslava Mahuchikh (UKR) and Hamish Kerr (NZL)• Pole vault: Nina Kennedy (AUS) and Mondo Duplantis (SWE)• Lengthy soar: Tara Davis-Woodhall (USA) and Miltiadis Tentoglou (GRE)• Ladies’s triple soar: Thea LaFond (DMA)• Males’s hammer: Ethan Katzberg (CAN)• Javelin: Haruka Kitaguchi (JPN) and Arshad Nadeem (PAK)
The checklist of certified athletes may even embody:• 26 world champions from the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25• 25 Diamond League Last winners from the 2026 season• The perfect performers of 2026
There’s no cap on what number of stars from every nation can compete in every occasion.
Within the combined 4x100m and 4x400m, groups will have the ability to qualify mechanically by way of the 2026 World Athletics Relays in Botswana.
US$10 MILLION PRIZE POT
The stakes are excessive. Athletes will battle for his or her share of a record-setting prize pot of US$10 million, the most important ever provided in a single observe and area occasion.
Each athlete lining up in Budapest will likely be rewarded for his or her efficiency, however there can solely be one winner. Each final champion will stroll away with the highest prize of US$150,000.
Partnerships and enhanced promotional rights for athletes may even unlock better monetary alternatives for the celebrities and the game.
Prize cash breakdown (figures in USD)
Particular person: 1st $150,000; 2nd $75,000; third $40,000; 4th $25,000; fifth $16,000; sixth $14,000; seventh $12,000; eighth $10,000; ninth $9,000; tenth $8,000; eleventh $7,000; twelfth $6,000; thirteenth $5,000; 14th $4,000; fifteenth $3,000; sixteenth $2,000
Relays: 1st $80,000; 2nd $40,000; third $24,000; 4th $20,000; fifth $16,000; sixth $14,000; seventh $10,000; eighth $8,000
World Athletics will oversee the occasion’s manufacturing and all broadcast partnerships with a precedence on making certain followers in every single place can tune in by way of free-to-air tv and digital platforms. With Tata Communications and HBS as host broadcaster, the Final Championship will gentle up the Budapest Nationwide Athletics Centre and screens throughout the globe.
All motion, from begin to end. The stage is ready for the extraordinary.
World Athletics
*Full timetable and operating order but to be launched
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In regards to the World Athletics Final Championship
The World Athletics Final Championship is a ground-breaking new international contest designed to find out the easiest of the most effective. Staged each two years, the occasion will present a spectacular conclusion to the summer time athletics season, within the years the place there is no such thing as a World Athletics Championships. The occasion launches in 2026, when Budapest’s Nationwide Athletics Centre will welcome the world from 11-13 September. Certified athletes will embody Olympic champions, world champions, Diamond League Last winners and the 12 months’s finest performers. Three periods, every of round three hours in length, will happen throughout three days and can showcase jumps, throws and observe finals. All motion, from begin to end.
