Courtney Olsen and Charlie Lawrence Win Both 100K World Titles for the United States

Lawrence ran 6:09:25 to beat world record holder Aleksandr Sorokin in Ames, Spain, on Sunday, and Olsen came through in 7:10:31, the first time the Americans have won both titles at the same championships.

Published: Sep 21, 2026 12:55 pm

Jessy Carveth

Jessy Carveth

Jessy is our Senior News Editor, pro cyclist and former track and field athlete with a Bachelors degree in Kinesiology.

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Courtney Olsen and Charlie Lawrence won the women’s and men’s 100K world titles in Ames, Spain, on Sunday, the first time the United States has won both at the same championships since the series began in 1987.

Lawrence finished in 6:09:25, quicker than any winner of this race has ever gone. Haruki Okayama’s 6:12:10 in Germany in 2022 had been the fastest winning time in the championships’ history, with Jumpei Yamaguchi seven seconds outside it in 2024, and Lawrence took 2:45 off it on a flat paved course outside Santiago de Compostela, one loop of 4.8K and then 19 laps of 5K. Olsen came through about an hour behind him in 7:10:31.

Masato Tanaka of Japan took the men’s race out hard enough to be 73 seconds clear after two laps, and Lawrence let him have it. The gap was still 2:10 by 30K. Lawrence then ran 17:40 and 17:45 back to back, took Tanaka on the 10th lap and hit 50K in 3:00:34, with the world record still live if he could hold 18:30 laps the rest of the way. It was 61 F (16 C) when the gun went at 8:30 a.m. and 90 F (32 C) later on, and Lawrence was down to 19:02 on the 15th lap and 19:09 and 19:10 on the 17th and 18th.

Courtney Olsen and Charlie Lawrence Win Both 100K World Titles for the United States 1

Aleksandr Sorokin moved into second at 60K, four minutes down, and took back some of it without ever getting close. The Lithuanian holds the men’s 100K world record of 6:05:35 along with the 100-mile, 12-hour and 24-hour marks, and he has won two 24-hour world titles. He has still never won this one. He was second in 6:12:41.

Japan had taken the four previous men’s titles, and at halfway on Sunday three of its runners sat in the top seven. Taketoshi Oe was 14th at the finish, Tanaka 18th and Tatsuya Itagaki 33rd.

Miho Nakata, who used to hold the women’s 24-hour world record, led the women’s race for 80 of its 100 kilometers. She opened in 20:05, was 91 seconds up at 25K and, after laps of 21:04 and 21:34, still three minutes clear of second place at halfway. Olsen sat sixth at 25K and worked forward all afternoon, and by 80K the gap was down to 60 seconds. Her 16th lap, 22:05, took more than a minute out of Nakata, she was in front on the 17th, and she won by 1:26.

Olsen ran 6:59:55 at Tunnel Hill last November, the first time an American woman had gone under seven hours for the distance and almost a minute inside the mark Ann Trason set in 1995. She was seventh at Comrades in June and fourth at these championships in 2022.

Courtney Olsen and Charlie Lawrence Win Both 100K World Titles for the United States 2

These were the 33rd championships, and Max King, in Doha in 2014, is the only other American man to have won the title. The American women have won it five times, Trason in 1988 and 1995, Kami Semick in 2009, Amy Sproston in 2012 and Camille Herron in 2015. None of those landed in a year when an American man also won.

The U.S. men took the team title in 19:17:18, the combined time of their three scorers, 44 seconds ahead of Great Britain after 100K apiece. Brogan Austin, the 2018 U.S. marathon champion, was up to second on the road at 70K before fading to eighth in 6:27:50, and Chikara Omine, who races in the 40 to 44 age group, closed the team out in 6:40:03. Croatia took the women’s team title in 22:12:26, from Spain and Finland. The United States was ninth, with Allison Mercer next home for the Americans in 7:39:55.

Alex Milne took third in 6:17:50 and a British road record with it, 90 seconds inside the 6:19:20 Steve Way ran at Gravesend in 2014, Athletics Weekly reported. Don Ritchie’s 6:10:20 from a track in 1978 is still the quickest 100K any British runner has covered. Milne is the reigning 50K world champion and was fourth at Comrades. Sarah Webster, who holds the women’s 24-hour world record, was running third with one lap left and stepped off the course.

Lawrence’s American record is 6:07:10, set on a track in December, so Sunday’s win came 2:15 outside his own best and 3:50 outside Sorokin’s. Sorokin turns 45 on Sept. 30. The championships have run every other year since 2016, and the IAU has not yet named the next host.