On Wednesday, ATHLOS introduced its world enlargement by including London to its 2026 championship collection, with the meet set for the historic StoneX Stadium on Sept. 18. The BBC reported that ATHLOS creator Alexis Ohanian will even carry the occasion again to New York on Oct. 2 for its third consecutive 12 months. In 2026, the collection encompasses a prize pool that’s triple final 12 months’s, and has already secured commitments from a few of the world’s high observe and subject athletes.
What’s new in 12 months three?
After two profitable years elevating ladies’s observe and subject by growing visibility and prize cash, ATHLOS is upgrading. With the addition of a second meet, the collection guarantees a complete prize purse of US$2.1 million in 2026, a big enhance from final 12 months’s US$773,500. Athletes shall be eligible to earn as much as US$155,000, based mostly on their cumulative factors throughout each meets.
Ohanian will not be stopping on the prize purse. He has promised an fairness stake to each athlete who competes on the conferences; if ATHLOS continues its success, the ladies competing will share within the glory.
“This fairness is a method for us to have an actual partnership,” Ohanian instructed the BBC. “These are the athletes who’re the primary movers, those who’re taking a leap and serving to us get this began.”
Ohanian is benefiting from being married to 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williamswho’s returning to carry much more stardom to the collection by presenting the Tiffany & Co. Crown (awarded as an alternative of medals) to the general winners.
Making an impression
Ohanian has been vocal about supporting ladies’s athletics, saying he’s dedicated to closing the “historic hole” between “the economics of girls’s observe and subject and the excellence of the expertise.”
Main a listing of elite names, 2024 Paris 200m gold medallist Gabby Thomas is happy concerning the alternative and believes ATHLOS can reshape perceptions round ladies’s observe and subject. “When a younger lady watches me race, I would like them to see a sport the place ladies are handled with respect and with the economics we’ve all the time deserved,” she instructed the BBC. “The narrative rising up was which you could’t run skilled observe and subject, that there’s nothing in it. I like that we’re rewriting that.”
Different dedicated stars embody the U.S.’s Sha’Carri Richardson, Tara Davis-Woodhall and Masai Russelltogether with Dominican sprinter Marileidy Paulino. The featured occasions embody: 100mH, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, the mile and the lengthy bounce.
