Seb Coe says new Ultimate C’ship will be ‘game changer’

Each session will last three hours and athletes will represent both themselves and their national teams, wearing national kit

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said on Friday the new Ultimate Championship team event officially unveiled by the sport’s governing body would be a “game changer” for track and field. 

The inaugural event will be held in Budapest on September 11-13, 2026, and will be staged every two years to fulfil World Athletics’ ambition of having a global championship every year. 

The federation said the event would provide “a spectacular conclusion to the summer athletics season, in the years where there is no World Athletics Championships.” 

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The event boasts a “record-setting” prize pot of $10 million (9.6 million euros). World Athletics said it was “the largest ever offered in track and field” — with champions set to receive $150,000. 

Each session will last three hours and athletes will represent both themselves and their national teams, wearing national kit. 

Coe, who held a press conference in the Hungarian capital, said: “This new global event will be a game changer for our sport and for our athletes. We want to bring our fans athletics like they have never seen it before — with the best of the best athletes in our sport competing head-to-head in a passion-fuelled, high octane, festival of sport, with sound, light and innovation.” 

World Athletics said the event would be “an accelerator for innovation” in the sport. 

The announcement comes after four-time Olympic sprint champion Michael Johnson unveiled details of his four-meet Grand Slam Track series, which makes its debut next year with meetings in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. 

Johnson’s series is widely seen as a challenge to the established Diamond League circuit of meets as the sport of athletics seeks to grab more limelight from other sports outside of the Olympics and world championships.

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