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World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said on Friday the new Ultimate Championship team event officially unveiled by the sport’s governing body would be a “game changer” for track and field. The inaugural event will be held in Budapest on September 11-13, 2026, and will be staged every two years to fulfil World Athletics’ ambition of having a global championship every year. The federation said the event would provide “a spectacular conclusion to the summer athletics season, in the years where there is no World Athletics Championships.
” The event boasts a “record-setting” prize pot of $10 million (9.6 million euros). World said it was “the largest ever offered in track and field” — with champions set to receive $150,000.
Each session will last three hours and athletes will represent both themselves and their national teams, wearing national kit. Coe, who held a press conference in the Hungarian capital, said: “This new global event will be a game changer for our sport and for our athletes. We want to bring our fans athletics like they have never seen it before — with the best of the best athletes in our sport competing head-to-head in a passion-fuelled, high octane, festival of sport, with sound, light and innovation.
” World Athletics said the event would be “an accelerator for innovation” in the sport. The announcement comes after four-time Olympic sprint champion Michael Johnson unveiled details of his four-meet Grand Slam Track series, which makes its debut next year with meetings in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Johnson’s series is widely seen as a challenge to the established Diamond League circuit of meets as the sport of athletics seeks to grab more limelight from other sports outside of the Olympics and world championships.
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