14 Oct 2025

Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and World 400m champion Collen Kebinatshipi have qualified for the newly introduced World Athletics Ultimate Championship meet.

The inaugural event to be held in Budapest, Hungary from September 11-13, 2026, will offer a record-setting prize pot of US$10 million, the largest ever offered in a single track and field event.

Every athlete lining up in Budapest will be financially rewarded for their performance, according to World Athletics, with the champion in each event taking home the top prize of US$150 000.

World Athletics also anticipates that new partnerships and enhanced promotional rights will unlock greater financial opportunities for the stars and the sport.

The fast-paced three-day competition will feature only top-ranked or only the ‘best of the best’ athletes.

Automatic qualifiers include 26 Olympic champions from Paris 2024, 26 World Champions from the recent World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and 25 Diamond League winners in the 2026 season.

Other athletes will qualify based on their performance in 2026 via the World Rankings qualification system.

In an interview, Botswana Athletics Association acting president, Oabona Theetso described the introduction of the World Athletics Ultimate Championship as a step in the right direction for the sport.

Theetso commended World Athletics for being athletic-centric, noting that the large injection of money into the prize pool clearly demonstrated such focus. 

“It is new. It is the best of the best, so when you compete against the best, it is a new challenge to our athletes,” he said.

He said while only Tebogo and Kebinatshipi were the only runners from Botswana who had qualified so far, he was optimistic that other local athletes would qualify for the Ultimate Championship since the World Rankings qualification system based on the best performers of 2026 also provided another path for qualification.

The World Relays scheduled for Gaborone in May next year will also be a key qualification event for the relays.

However, Theetso said he was disappointed that the 4x400 metres relays were not included in the World Athletics Ultimate Championship’s three-day schedule.

“We would have loved for our 4x400m relay team to be a part of it. However, we take solace in that the Mixed 4x100m relay and Mixed 4x400m relay events are part of the programme,” Theetso said. ENDS