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 shall be on Budapest’s Nationwide Athletics Centre on 11-13 September 2026, when the world’s biggest will settle the talk.
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 bounce, lengthy bounce and javelin, in addition to the ladies’s triple bounce, males’s hammer throw, and combined 4x100m and 4x400m.
Each second counts. Every session shall be stacked with finals* – no heats, no easing in.
On the monitor, the semifinals will star eight athletes, and solely the highest 4 in every will make it via to the ultimate. The 1500m, 5000m and relay races shall 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 bounce• Males’s pole vault• Ladies’s lengthy bounce• 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 bounce• 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 bounce• Ladies’s triple bounce• Males’s javelin throw
Three periods of high-octane motion, every of about three hours in length. The Final Championship shall be a continuous passion-fuelled competition of monitor and discipline.
OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS: QUALIFIED
As the top of the 2026 monitor and discipline 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 routinely 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 bounce: Yaroslava Mahuchikh (UKR) and Hamish Kerr (NZL)• Pole vault: Nina Kennedy (AUS) and Mondo Duplantis (SWE)• Lengthy bounce: Tara Davis-Woodhall (USA) and Miltiadis Tentoglou (GRE)• Ladies’s triple bounce: Thea LaFond (DMA)• Males’s hammer: Ethan Katzberg (CAN)• Javelin: Haruka Kitaguchi (JPN) and Arshad Nadeem (PAK)
The record of certified athletes may also embody:• 26 world champions from the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25• 25 Diamond League Last winners from the 2026 season• The very best 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 be capable to qualify routinely through 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 biggest ever provided in a single monitor and discipline occasion.
Each athlete lining up in Budapest shall 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 also unlock larger 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 all places can tune in through 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 about for the extraordinary.
World Athletics
*Full timetable and working 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 world contest designed to find out the perfect 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 isn’t any 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 monitor finals. All motion, from begin to end.
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