Everything You Need To Know About the 2026 U.S. Championships

The U.S. Track and Field Championships open Thursday at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island, the first time the national meet has come to New York City in 35 years and the first outdoor nationals held outside Eugene, Oregon, since 2019. In a season with no Olympics and no World Championships, the four days will answer a question American track has not faced in years: what a national title is worth when there is nothing to qualify for.

What Is Actually at Stake

The answer runs through Budapest. The inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship, a three-day, $10 million season finale, takes place Sept. 11 to 13, with fields capped at 16 athletes per track event and eight per field event. According to World Athletics, entry goes to reigning Olympic and world champions, 2026 Diamond League Final winners, and otherwise to the world rankings, which close on Sept. 1. A championship win in New York carries the ranking points of a top-tier meet, so places on Randall’s Island this week will decide places in Budapest in September. American results at the Prefontaine Classic, Monaco, and London have already shaped those rankings; nationals is the last big American deposit.

The Island Has Seen This Before

Icahn Stadium sits on the footprint of Downing Stadium, which opened on July 11, 1936, with Jesse Owens racing the Olympic Trials in front of 15,000 people, according to NYC Parks. The 1991 nationals were the old stadium’s last national championships; it was demolished in 2002, and Icahn opened on the site in 2005. The new stadium produced its own history within three years. Usain Bolt ran his first world record there, 9.72 for 100m at a Grand Prix meet on May 31, 2008, a mark confirmed in World Athletics’ contemporaneous report. The track Bolt ran no longer exists in one sense: USATF says a new Mondo surface went down in late 2025.

Who Collides Where

Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek meet in the 100m, with the final Friday at 7:53 p.m. ET. At last year’s nationals, Lyles beat Bednarek by four hundredths in the 200m, stared at him across the line, and took a shove for it. Bednarek has skipped the 200m this time, leaving Lyles, beaten in Paris earlier this month, to chase a sixth national title in the event, which no man has done.

Sha’Carri Richardson runs only the 100m, where a win would make her the second woman since 2000 to take three U.S. titles in the event, after Carmelita Jeter. Tara Davis-Woodhall enters two events: the long jump, where she has not lost since 2024, a run of 18 straight meets, and the 100m hurdles, where NBC Sports notes she is seeded just fifth at 12.47. And Cooper Lutkenhaus, the 17-year-old who won the world indoor 800m title in March (no one younger has won an individual world title), races the open 800m against the full Olympic-cycle field, with the final Sunday.

The setting is the inversion of Hayward Field: a 5,000-seat public park stadium, reachable by footbridge from Manhattan, run in partnership with New York Road Runners, whose free summer series is working the same streets this month. “We are excited for the opportunity to hold our marquee meet in New York City where the United States’ top runners, jumpers and throwers will get to showcase their talents in front of new and longtime fans,” USATF chief executive Max Siegel said in the February announcement.

Schedule and How to Watch

The meet runs July 23 to 26. Both 10,000m finals close Thursday night, the 100m finals headline Friday, the 1,500m finals anchor Saturday, and Sunday stacks the 800m, 5,000m, and 200m finals. Morning sessions stream on USATF.TV, evening sessions air on Peacock and NBCSN, and NBC carries Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Full entry lists are on USATF’s event page. The Ultimate Championship follows in Budapest in September, its fields set in part by what happens on the island this week.