Can money change athletics?

In mid-September World Athletics organised the first Ultimate Championship in Budapest, a competition with which it wants to round off the athletics calendar. The host of the competition was the National Athletics Centre, the same stadium at which the world championships were held in 2023. Over three evenings, from 11 to 13 September, the world's best athletes competed in 28 events for trophies and money.

The choice of year is no accident: 2026 is a year in which there are neither Olympic Games nor a world championship. Until now in such years the season ended with the final of the Diamond League, the series of the most important meetings of the year. The new championship is meant to give athletes and the public a real high point of the season. The federation plans for the championship to be held every two years and to become a permanent part of the calendar.

This is a closed competition, for which the athletes must receive an invitation. Direct invitations went to the Olympic champions from Paris 2024, the world champions from Tokyo 2025 and the winners of the Diamond League this year. The remaining places were allocated according to the world rankings, which rank athletes on the basis of their results. The number of participants was deliberately small: at most 16 athletes in the races and only eight in the field events.

However, the most attention was drawn by the record prize fund of 10 million dollars, the largest in the history of athletics. Every winner in the individual events received 150,000 dollars, and all participants got money, even those who finished last. By comparison, winners at ordinary meetings receive many times smaller sums. The federation's president Sebastian Coe called the 150,000-dollar prize a big change for a sport that often is regarded as underfunded. On the other hand, the question remains whether money alone can attract a new audience.

In the sprint races and the hurdle races there were no traditional heats, but only semi-finals and finals. The longer races and all field events were straight finals. In the throws and horizontal jumps the athletes had four instead of the usual six attempts. Instead of medals the winners received specially designed trophies, which is another difference from traditional championships. The shot put, the discus, the men's triple jump and the women's hammer were dropped from the programme. This deprived the athletes in those events of the chance of big earnings, although they are part of the Olympic programme.

Pole vault world record holder Mondo Duplantis won with 6.20 metres, while the American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden won the races over 100 and 200 metres. Her 10.62 seconds over 100 metres is one of the fastest times in history, and with 21.47 seconds over 200 metres she set the best result in the world this year. Among the men, Kenny Bednarek from the USA won the 200 metres in 19.52 seconds, also the best time in the world this season. The Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen beat the world champion Cole Hocker over 5,000 metres, with a time just under 13 minutes. The next editions will show how long the new format will survive, but for the athletes who earned money in Budapest, it is already a success.