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 can be on Budapest’s Nationwide Athletics Centre on 11-13 September 2026, when the world’s biggest will settle the controversy.
FINALS BY SESSION
Within the battle to find out the champion of champions, the world’s greatest athletes will conflict in 28 occasions throughout three action-packed periods of competitors.
The programme will characteristic girls’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 blended 4x100m and 4x400m.
Each second counts. Every session can 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 by way of to the ultimate. The 1500m, 5000m and relay races can be straight finals – no second probabilities.
THE FINALS:
Friday 11 September
• Males’s 5000m
• Girls’s 100m hurdles
• Males’s 110m hurdles
• Girls’s excessive soar
• Males’s pole vault
• Girls’s lengthy soar
• Males’s hammer throw
• Combined 4x100m relay
• Combined 4x400m relay
Saturday 12 September
• Girls’s 100m
• Males’s 100m
• Girls’s 800m
• Girls’s 1500m
• Girls’s 400m hurdles
• Males’s 400m hurdles
• Girls’s pole vault
• Males’s lengthy soar
• Girls’s javelin throw
Sunday 13 September
• Girls’s 200m
• Males’s 200m
• Girls’s 400m
• Males’s 400m
• Males’s 800m
• Males’s 1500m
• Girls’s 5000m
• Males’s excessive soar
• Girls’s triple soar
• Males’s javelin throw
Three periods of high-octane motion, every of about three hours in period. The Final Championship can be a continuous passion-fuelled competition of monitor and discipline.
OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS: QUALIFIED
As the head of the 2026 monitor and discipline season, the Final Championship will pit world champions and Olympic champions towards Wanda Diamond League winners and the yr’s greatest performing athletes, to crown the final word champion.
Twenty-six athletes have already robotically 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)
• Girls’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 can even embrace:
• 26 world champions from the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25
• 25 Diamond League Ultimate 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 blended 4x100m and 4x400m, groups will be capable to qualify robotically 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 biggest ever provided in a single monitor and discipline occasion.
Each athlete lining up in Budapest can 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 can even unlock higher 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 guaranteeing followers in all places 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 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 international 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 season 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 embrace Olympic champions, world champions, Diamond League Ultimate winners and the yr’s greatest performers. Three periods, every of round three hours in period, will happen throughout three days and can showcase jumps, throws and monitor finals. All motion, from begin to end.
