World Athletics Ultimate Championship
The qualification system conditions and criteria plus the ‘road to’ tracking tool have been published for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship 2026.
The Ultimate Championship will bring together world champions, Olympic champions, Wanda Diamond League winners and the year’s best performing athletes in an epic clash of titans. It launches in Budapest in 2026, when the world’s greatest will settle the debate across three intense sessions of action from 11-13 September.
Athletes have already started to qualify by virtue of becoming Olympic champions in Paris and world champions in Tokyo. The conditions and criteria document confirms which other stars will be eligible to receive a World Athletics invitation to join them in Budapest.
Meanwhile, the Road to the Ultimate online tool is designed to help athletes, media and fans track the athlete journey to next year's championship, which offers a record-setting prize pot of US$10 million – the largest ever offered in a single track and field event.
Searchable by discipline and qualification status, the tool provides a real-time view of each discipline over the course of the Ultimate Championship 2026 qualification period.
Invitation criteria
The qualification system conditions and criteria document outlines the events and target numbers, participation conditions, invitation criteria and timeline for the inaugural Ultimate Championship.
The way individual athletes can earn invites includes by:
- being an Olympic champion from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
- being a world champion from the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25
- winning the 2026 Diamond League Final in Brussels
- their position on the world rankings during the ranking period of 2 September 2025 to 1 September 2026
The list of eligible athletes will feature in the Road to the Ultimate tool, in the stats section of the World Athletics website.
As eligible athletes are personally invited to participate, there’s no cap on how many stars from a country can compete in each individual event.
For the mixed 4x100m and 4x400m, there will also be automatic invitations for the first six placed teams at the World Athletics Relays Gaborone 26. The remaining two teams will be selected based on the best performances achieved during the qualification period of 22 August 2025 to 1 September 2026.
Full conditions and criteria information can be found in the qualification system document.
The Ultimate Championship programme features women’s and men’s competition in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m, 100m hurdles/110m hurdles, 400m hurdles, pole vault, high jump, long jump and javelin throw, as well as the women’s triple jump, men’s hammer throw, and mixed 4x100m and 4x400m.
Each of the three sessions will be stacked with finals. On the track, the two semifinals in certain events will star eight athletes, and only the top four in each will make it through to the final. The 1500m, 5000m and relay races will be straight finals – no second chances.
World Athletics
