Elizabeth Egan | Sep 11, 2026
The inaugural Ultimate Championship, a brand-new competition to close out the seasons without a World Championship, will take place in Budapest this weekend.
Mark English (800m), Sharlene Mawdsley (400m) and Rhasidat Adeleke (200m) are among the athletes scheduled to compete for the largest prize pot in track and field.
Athletes in track events up to and including the 800m will compete in semi-finals, with eight athletes making the final. All other events, including the field events, will be straight finals, across three action-packed evenings of competition.
As things currently stand, at least one Irish athlete will be in action in each session, with the potential for more should any of them make their respective final.
Adeleke, who broke the Irish record to win European silver last month, is ranked 14th of the 17 entrants based on world ranking, and eighth on season’s best. She will race in the first semi-final against a trio of Americans who have run sub-22 this season, including Olympic Champion Gabrielle Thomas and World Champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden.
The top four in each semi-final will make the final, and Adeleke will likely need to be at her very best to make the cut. The Tallaght AC athlete has raced just once since her Birmingham heroics, a 22.85 (+0.0) 200m in Brescia.
While appearing modest by her own very high standards, that time was the same as the European Championship qualification standard she so desperately needed just six weeks ago, a reminder of how dramatically she rescued something from the season.
Mawdsley’s season has been in dramatic reverse of how Adeleke’s has played out, the Tipperary woman showing scintillating form in the early part of the season, setting personal bests, finishing top-3 at Continental Tour Gold meetings, and earning a debut Diamond League appearance, before her Birmingham dreams were dashed in the very race in which Adeleke’s became a reality.
Six weeks of rehab following the hamstring injury she sustained at the National Championships in July, however, resulted in a Continental Tour Silver win in Rovereto earlier this week, and a seventh consecutive sub-51-second 400m clocking.
Mawdsley is the first of the Irish in action and will race in semi-final one on Friday evening where she will face Olympic Champion Marileidy Paulino and recent Diamond League Final winner Nakisha Pryce.
The sub-50, which looked inevitable for Mawdsley earlier in 2026, may have to wait until next season. But it is certainly coming.
European Champion English skipped the Diamond League final to focus on this event, and will be looking for a big performance against some of the best there’s ever been in this event, to round out a memorable season.
English set Irish records at 600m and 800m indoors this spring, before winning his first Diamond League race in May and breaking the national 1000m record in June. He broke 1:53 for the first time when finishing second at the London Diamond League in July before breaking the championship record in the semi-final of the European Championships, where he became the first Irish man to win an individual European title.
Marco Arop and Djamel Sedjati, both of whom have run 1.41 this season, are the best of English’s opposition in a stacked semi-final. Should he reach the final, he will also face formidable opposition in the form of Emmanuel Wanyoni and Brandon Miller.
If he makes the final, anything can happen.
Viewers in Ireland can follow the action via the World Athletics Website (free registration required) and the World Athletics YouTube channel. BBC are also broadcasting all three days of competition on live TV. Friday evening's session is from 6-9pm, while the Saturday and Sunday sessions are from 5-8pm.
There's an Irish-specific timetable and links to startlists and live results on the TrackAthletes Ultimate Championship page.
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