Australian ultrarunner Phil Gore has won the 2025 Big’s Backyard Ultra World Championships in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, completing an extraordinary 114 laps of the 6.7-kilometer course, a total of 764 kilometers over nearly five days of continuous running.
Britain’s Sarah Perry also made history, setting a new women’s Backyard Ultra world record with 95 laps (637 kilometers), surpassing the previous mark of 87.
What Went Down
- 🥇 Phil Gore (Australia) wins the Backyard Ultra World Championships after 114 hours and 764 km, outlasting Belgium’s Ivo Steyaert.
- 🇬🇧 Sarah Perry (UK) sets a new women’s world record with 95 laps / 637 km, beating the previous record of 87.
- The race took place in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, lasting almost five full days.
- The format, a 6.7 km loop every hour until only one runner remains, was created by Lazarus Lake, the mastermind behind the Barkley Marathons.
- Gore now holds both the world record (119 laps) and the world championship title, and hinted this could be his final Backyard event.
The race, created by the eccentric Lazarus Lake (Gary Cantrell), is notorious for its simplicity and cruelty. Runners must complete a 6.7-kilometer loop every hour, on the hour, until only one remains. There’s no finish line, no set distance, and no sense of relief until everyone else has dropped out.
This year’s field of 75 runners started on Saturday morning under the Tennessee sun, trading trail and road loops as day turned to night and back again. By Thursday morning, only Gore was left standing. Belgium’s Ivo Steyaert, who kept pace for 113 laps, finally bowed out in the 113th hour, leaving Gore to run one final lap alone to seal the title.
For Gore, 39, it was the victory he’d chased for years. “I wanted to get here four years ago but couldn’t because of COVID,” he said after finishing. “Two years ago I had my chance and it didn’t quite work out for me. I’m happy to get here now and get the win.”
He already held the overall Backyard Ultra world record, 119 laps (797 kilometers), achieved earlier this year at the Dead Cow Gully Backyard Masters in Queensland, but the world championship win carried more weight.
“It’s been an amazing event,” Gore said, looking dazed and spent. “There’s been a lot of time throughout this event where I’ve been really confused. I’d be out running on the road and suddenly think, how did I get here? what am I doing? I’m just looking forward to getting some proper sleep.”
Behind him, the atmosphere at Bell Buckle felt more like a family gathering than a competition. That’s by design. Lake often reminds participants that no one can win without the others.
“In order for one to do well, everyone needs to do well,” he wrote before the event. “When that last athlete completes that last yard alone, it’s the culmination of everyone’s effort, the other athletes, the crews, even the race staff. That’s why the backyard has spread like a virus, because when we play in the backyard, we’re all on the same team. We are family.”
That spirit carried through even as exhaustion took its toll.
Sarah Perry’s world-record run on the women’s side was one of the defining moments of the week, 95 hours and 637 kilometers before back pain forced her to stop. Her performance pushed the women’s standard forward again in a discipline where endurance and psychological grit often blur together.
As the final laps ticked away, the event’s most experienced runners began to fall. France’s Nicolas Cointepas dropped after 105 loops, and 2023 world champion Harvey Lewis, who ran 108 last year, made it to 106 this time. Gore’s relentless rhythm, averaging just under 47 minutes per lap, proved impossible to match.
Now holding both the world record and the world championship, Gore hinted that this may be his farewell to the format that has defined his ultrarunning career. “I might retire from backyards now and go do something else,” he said with a weary grin.
Whether he does or not, his 2025 victory, and Perry’s groundbreaking run alongside him, will be remembered as a defining moment in the growing world of backyard ultrarunning.
