Recap: World Athletics Ultimate Championships Day 1

Meet: World Athletics Ultimate Championship, Sept. 11 to 13, 2026
Venue: Gyula Zsivotzky National Athletics Centre, Budapest
Results source: World Athletics

On the opening night of the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship, Jakob Ingebrigtsen was still only fifth with 100m of the 5,000m to run, and he won it by more than half a second. That was the sharp end of an evening in Budapest that put eight finals into a single session, paid each winner $150,000 and handed out no medals at all.

The no-medals part is deliberate, one of several things World Athletics has changed about how a championship works. Every invited athlete gets a participation token, and the winner gets a trophy with that token set into it. The money is the other departure, and it is the reason the entry lists look the way they do: $150,000 for a win out of a $10 million pot, with a ladder that runs all the way down to $2,000 for finishing last in an event.

If you were counting nations, the Americans owned the night. They won the mixed 4x100m relay and both hurdles finals, filled eight of the 24 podium places available and took the first four positions in the men’s 110m hurdles. Even the 5,000m, which they lost, gave them five of the first seven finishers.

Men’s 5,000m

For 4,000m this was a tactical race and not much else. The first kilometer took 2:39.77 and 3,000m went by in 7:58.94, slow for a field like this one, and Biniam Mehary was still only at 10:33.25 through 4,000m. Ky Robinson had a go at the front, Parker Wolfe took it over at the bell, and Ingebrigtsen stayed where he was.

Then the last lap took 54.39, the last 100m took 12.60, and it was finished. He won in 12:59.24. Behind him, second through seventh finished within 0.35 seconds of each other and eight men broke 13:02, which is a lot of very fast men arriving at once. Cole Hocker got second by eight hundredths from Wolfe.

Ingebrigtsen came into this year with Achilles surgery behind him and his whole 2026 season in question, and he did not race until the European Championships in Birmingham. “Being injured, I was fearing the worst outcome and did not know if I would be able to run at all, especially at this level,” he told World Athletics. “This is amazing, I am extremely happy.”

“When you are on the podium then you are capable of winning so I feel like that and I’m a little bit disappointed but also happy, if that makes sense,” said Hocker, who races Ingebrigtsen again in Sunday’s 1,500m.

1. Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR) 12:59.24
2. Cole Hocker (USA) 13:00.05
3. Parker Wolfe (USA) 13:00.13
4. Biniam Mehary (ETH) 13:00.24
5. Nico Young (USA) 13:00.26
6. Grant Fisher (USA) 13:00.34
7. Graham Blanks (USA) 13:00.40
8. Egide Ntakarutimana (BDI) 13:01.91
9. Ky Robinson (AUS) 13:04.09
10. Jacob Krop (KEN) 13:06.62
11. Cornelius Kemboi (KEN) 13:07.68

DNF: Addisu Yihune (ETH)

Men’s 110m Hurdles

Ja’Kobe Tharp has held the world record since June, when he ran 12.75 at the NCAA prelims, and he is still 20. He beat Cordell Tinch here by a hundredth, 12.94 to 12.95, with Bradley Franklin and Trey Cunningham third and fourth. That is four Americans in the first four places, from a final that five of them started. The field thinned further when Jason Joseph and Jamal Britt were disqualified, leaving six men with a time to their name.

1. Ja’Kobe Tharp (USA) 12.94
2. Cordell Tinch (USA) 12.95
3. Bradley Franklin (USA) 13.01
4. Trey Cunningham (USA) 13.08
5. Tatsuki Abe (JPN) 13.24
6. Rachid Muratake (JPN) 13.71

DQ: Jason Joseph (SUI), Jamal Britt (USA)

Women’s 100m Hurdles

Masai Russell’s 14th win of the season came harder than the margin makes it look. Devynne Charlton was quickest away, clipped the seventh hurdle and came home fourth, and Russell did not have the lead until the last three barriers. Her 12.22 is well off the 12.09 world record she ran in Zurich last month, and it was still 0.12 clear of Tobi Amusan.

This is also the stadium where, at the 2023 World Championships, she hit a hurdle in her semifinal and did not finish. “Coming back here after hitting the hurdle in 2023 and now being the Ultimate champion is a way to rewrite the story here,” she told World Athletics.

1. Masai Russell (USA) 12.22
2. Tobi Amusan (NGR) 12.34
3. Nadine Visser (NED) 12.39
4. Devynne Charlton (BAH) 12.40
5. Megan Simmonds (JAM) 12.42
6. Alaysha Johnson (USA) 12.46
7. Pia Skrzyszowska (POL) 12.52
8. Alia Armstrong (USA) 12.77

Men’s Pole Vault

Duplantis turned up with two Olympic titles, three world outdoor golds and four world indoor titles, and the competition went the way those tend to. He passed 5.80m, cleared everything else at the first time of asking and had it won at 6.20m. Only then did he put the bar at 6.32m, which would have been a 16th world record, and he missed it in a cold stadium. It was his first competition since he pulled out of the Diamond League final with a tight leg.

Emmanouil Karalis made him work rather harder than the 5cm gap suggests, matching him at 6.15m before failing at 6.20m. He said afterward that he had been managing a problem with his leg and his back. His own best of 6.20m, jumped in Zurich, puts him second on the world all-time list.

1. Mondo Duplantis (SWE) 6.20m
2. Emmanouil Karalis (GRE) 6.15m
3. Sondre Guttormsen (NOR) 5.95m
4. Kurtis Marschall (AUS) 5.95m
5. Zachery Bradford (USA) 5.95m
6. Baptiste Thiery (FRA) 5.80m
7. Sam Kendricks (USA) 5.80m
8. Christopher Nilsen (USA) 5.80m

Men’s Hammer Throw

Merlin Hummel threw 81.46m with his opening attempt and nobody got past it all night, but the competition will be remembered for who was missing from the end of it. Ethan Katzberg, the Olympic and world champion, sent his first throw beyond 80m and then watched it land outside the sector. His second was a foul as well. This format cuts the field to six after round two, so Katzberg’s championship lasted two throws and produced no mark.

Bence Halász gave the home crowd 80.30m and second place. Hummel came within two centimeters of his opening throw in round three, and none of the four men left for the final round improved.

“We had some new rules that we had to adapt to. But I did my best and I made it. I’m happy to be the ultimate champion,” Hummel said.

1. Merlin Hummel (GER) 81.46m
2. Bence Halász (HUN) 80.30m
3. Mykhaylo Kokhan (UKR) 78.90m
4. Yann Chaussinand (FRA) 78.36m
5. Volodymyr Myslyvcuk (CZE) 78.19m
6. Paweł Fajdek (POL) 76.11m
7. Rudy Winkler (USA) 75.86m

NM: Ethan Katzberg (CAN)

Women’s High Jump

Yaroslava Mahuchikh did not need much of her range. She was clean at 1.91m and 1.95m, took two goes at 1.99m, and by then it was finished, because Nicola Olyslagers had stopped at 1.95m and nobody else had cleared 1.91m. Mahuchikh asked for 2.04m afterward, a height nobody in the world has managed this year, and missed.

“This is the first Ultimate Championship and I am the first Ultimate champion,” said Mahuchikh, who is also the reigning Olympic and world champion.

1. Yaroslava Mahuchikh (UKR) 1.99m
2. Nicola Olyslagers (AUS) 1.95m
3. Eleanor Patterson (AUS) 1.91m
4. Angelina Topić (SRB) 1.91m
5. Iryna Gerashchenko (UKR) 1.91m
6. Lamara Distin (JAM) 1.86m
7. Maria Żodzik (POL) 1.86m
8. Yuliia Levchenko (UKR) 1.86m

Women’s Long Jump

Larissa Iapichino jumped 6.90m with her first attempt of the night and then spent the competition watching nobody get near it. She added 6.76m in round two and fouled her last two, which cost her nothing. Jazmin Sawyers found 6.78m in the final round to take second, Alyssa Jones opened with a season’s best 6.77m for third, and Diamond League champion Monae’ Nichols was out at the round-two cut with 6.39m and 6.33m.

It is the first global title of Iapichino’s career. “I am adding a new title to my family and I’m really happy to win from my first attempt,” she told World Athletics. Her mother is Fiona May, who won world long jump titles for Italy in 1995 and 2001 and took Olympic silver in 1996 and 2000.

1. Larissa Iapichino (ITA) 6.90m
2. Jazmin Sawyers (GBR) 6.78m
3. Alyssa Jones (USA) 6.77m
4. Hilary Kpatcha (FRA) 6.73m
5. Claire Bryant (USA) 6.52m
6. Agate De Sousa (POR) 6.47m
7. Monae’ Nichols (USA) 6.39m
8. Marthe Koala (BUR) 6.21m

Mixed 4x100m Relay

The championship’s first event went to the United States, and they were quick about it. Ronnie Baker, Anavia Battle, Courtney Lindsey and Kayla White ran 39.64, which is the second-fastest anyone has run the mixed 4x100m and 0.02 outside the world record Jamaica set in Gaborone on May 3. Jamaica was in this race too and finished 0.08 back.

Four months is not long to turn that around. At those same World Relays the Americans were third in 40.33, seven tenths adrift of the Jamaicans. Lindsey ran on that team as well.

“It’s really exciting to be the first ever Ultimate champions,” Baker told World Athletics.

1. United States 39.64
2. Jamaica 39.72
3. Great Britain and Northern Ireland 40.26
4. Canada 40.34
5. Spain 40.65
6. Germany 40.85
7. Hungary 41.21
8. Netherlands 41.31

The Semifinals

Three events ran semifinals on Friday to set up finals later in the weekend, two heats apiece from fields confirmed weeks ago. Keely Hodgkinson was the quickest 800m runner on the night at 1:57.57. Femke Broeders-Bol, who walked away from the 400m hurdles this season to remake herself as an 800m runner, was second in the other heat in 1:59.19 behind Audrey Werro.

Busang Collen Kebinatshipi led the men’s 400m at 44.23, and Chris Bailey and Rai Benjamin could not be separated behind him, both timed at 44.28. Marileidy Paulino was fastest in the women’s race at 49.58. Alexis Holmes had the night nobody wants, last in her heat in 51.60.

Men’s 400m semifinal 1: 1. Busang Collen Kebinatshipi (BOT) 44.23; 2. Chris Bailey (USA) 44.28; 3. Rai Benjamin (USA) 44.28; 4. Jereem Richards (TTO) 44.44; 5. Christopher Morales Williams (CAN) 44.98; 6. Bayapo Ndori (BOT) 45.00; 7. Muzala Samukonga (ZAM) 45.51; 8. Muhammad Abdallah Kounta (FRA) 45.53; 9. Patrik Simon Enyingi (HUN) 45.72

Men’s 400m semifinal 2: 1. Jacory Patterson (USA) 44.73; 2. Matthew Hudson-Smith (GBR) 44.79; 3. Lee Eppie (BOT) 44.85; 4. Attila Molnár (HUN) 44.97; 5. Yuki Joseph Nakajima (JPN) 45.00; 6. Jonas Phijffers (NED) 45.21; 7. Zakithi Nene (RSA) 45.30; 8. Khaleb McRae (USA) 46.55

Women’s 400m semifinal 1: 1. Marileidy Paulino (DOM) 49.58; 2. Salwa Eid Naser (BRN) 49.67; 3. Nickisha Pryce (JAM) 49.72; 4. Roxana Gómez (CUB) 50.34; 5. Yemi Mary John (GBR) 50.38; 6. Ella Onojuvwevwo (NGR) 50.50; 7. Sharlene Mawdsley (IRL) 51.28; 8. Alexis Holmes (USA) 51.60

Women’s 400m semifinal 2: 1. Henriette Jæger (NOR) 49.64; 2. Lieke Klaver (NED) 49.76; 3. Aaliyah Butler (USA) 49.82; 4. Martina Weil (CHI) 50.32; 5. Natalia Bukowiecka (POL) 50.40; 6. Stacey Ann Williams (JAM) 50.43; 7. Lurdes Gloria Manuel (CZE) 50.52; 8. Mercy Adongo Oketch (KEN) 52.94

Women’s 800m semifinal 1: 1. Keely Hodgkinson (GBR) 1:57.57; 2. Addison Wiley (USA) 1:58.14; 3. Sarah Billings (AUS) 1:58.37; 4. Eloisa Coiro (ITA) 1:58.48; 5. Shafiqua Maloney (VIN) 1:58.54; 6. Prudence Sekgodiso (RSA) 1:59.66; 7. Roisin Willis (USA) 2:00.11; 8. Veronica Vancardo (SUI) 2:16.75

Women’s 800m semifinal 2: 1. Audrey Werro (SUI) 1:59.05; 2. Femke Broeders-Bol (NED) 1:59.19; 3. Nigist Getachew (ETH) 1:59.69; 4. Valentina Rosamilia (SUI) 1:59.78; 5. Raevyn Rogers (USA) 1:59.86; 6. Oratile Nowe (BOT) 2:01.03; 7. Rénelle Lamote (FRA) 2:01.45; 8. Halimah Nakaayi (UGA) 2:02.62

What’s Coming Saturday

Saturday night has both 400m finals, the women’s 800m, both 100m finals, the women’s 1,500m, the women’s pole vault, the men’s long jump and the women’s javelin. Ingebrigtsen and Hocker do not meet again until Sunday, when the 1,500m closes the championship.