The World Athletics Ultimate Championship Starlists Are Out, And Some Big Names Are Missing

World Athletics published the entry lists for the Ultimate Championship on Monday, and four of the champions the meet was built around are not on them.

The lists cover 381 athletes from 65 federations and set 16 track finals, eight for the men and eight for the women, on top of the two mixed relays. Fields are small on purpose: 16 or 17 from the 800m down, 12 or 13 in the 1,500m and the 5,000m. Everything at 800m and shorter runs semifinals first, and only the top four in each go through to a final of eight. A withdrawal costs more here than it would at a World Championships, where the fields are several times the size.

Noah Lyles is the one that hurts. He is the meet’s Ultimate MC, the winners’ trophy exists because he suggested giving champions something made for them, and his Olympic 100m title from Paris had him entered before the season began. Then he strained something at the U.S. championships in July and it never settled. It “caused some other things to flare up,” he said on Sept. 4, announcing the end of his season in comments carried by Reuters. He is still flying to Budapest. His name is just not on either sprint list.

Kipyegon’s hamstring finished her season in August, which takes the world record holder out of the women’s 1,500m. Odira, who won the world 800m title in Tokyo last September, raced Lausanne on Aug. 21, went home to Nairobi and has been ill ever since; she told Pulse Sports Kenya this week that she has not trained. McLaughlin-Levrone is not racing anywhere in 2026. Beatrice Chebet has been on maternity leave since January, and between her and Kipyegon the women’s 5,000m has ended up with no Kenyan in it at all.

The Men’s 1,500m

Whatever else the weekend has lost, Sunday night still has the race it was promising. Thirteen men are entered and every one of them has run 3:30.80 or quicker this year, a spread of 3.18 seconds across an entire field. Josh Kerr has the fastest of those times, 3:27.62, and is ranked 84th in the world, which is why he needed an exceptional invitation to be in it.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Cole Hocker are both down for Friday’s 5,000m as well, two nights before the 1,500m, so the pair at the center of the row that blew up in Brussels will race each other twice in three days. Athletics Weekly called it last week, pointing out that Hocker’s world 5,000m title made him automatically eligible for both, and the lists confirm he is taking it. Neither man looks ready for the double on paper. Ingebrigtsen has run 13:15.29 over the distance this year, 24 seconds down on any other man in the field with a time beside his name, and sits 40th in the world at it. Hocker has no 5,000m time on the list at all this season, only an indoor best of 12:57.82. He is the reigning world champion over it.

The Rest of the Men’s Track

The 400m hurdles is the other event that delivers what was advertised. Alison dos Santos, Karsten Warholm and Rai Benjamin own the three quickest times of the season, all inside 46.70, and the fourth man on the list is more than half a second back. Benjamin is entered in the flat 400m as well, where his 43.83 puts him fourth behind Busang Collen Kebinatshipi.

Nothing on the program is tighter than the 800m, where 0.08 seconds covers Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Djamel Sedjati and Marco Arop. The 100m is deep in a different way: 14 of the 16 men have broken 9.90 at some point in their careers, and Oblique Seville arrives with the quickest time in the field at 9.82. Ja’Kobe Tharp takes the 12.75 world record into the 110m hurdles, with five more Americans behind him on the list.

The Women’s Track

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Julien Alfred go into the 100m on the same season’s best, 10.70, with Sha’Carri Richardson next on 10.77. Jefferson-Wooden is one of five women doubling into the 200m, where Gabby Thomas is ranked first in the world and Shaunae Miller-Uibo turns up on 22.04.

Three women in the 800m have gone under 1:55 this year and the fourth fastest in the field is more than two seconds adrift of them. Audrey Werro leads on 1:53.70, ahead of Keely Hodgkinson on 1:54.33 and Femke Broeders-Bol on 1:54.71. Broeders-Bol moved up from the 400m hurdles this season. Between her switch and McLaughlin-Levrone’s year off, the two fastest women in that event’s history are both missing from it, and Anna Cockrell tops the list on 52.13, with Dalilah Muhammad, third fastest of all time and now 36, still in the field.

Ethiopia has the six fastest times in the women’s 5,000m and six of the 12 entries. Four are in the 1,500m too, Freweyni Hailu doubling between the two, and one of the others is Haregeweyni Kalayu, whose date of birth on the entry list, May 29, 2009, would make her 17 and the youngest athlete on any individual track field in Budapest.

World Athletics attaches its usual line to the release, that the lists are correct at the time of publication and subject to change. Three of those four absences arrived inside the past three weeks.