Jefferson-Wooden runs 10.62, Bednarek wins 100 metres: American double triumph in Budapest
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Kenny Bednarek won the 100-metre titles at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, giving the United States victories in both of the shortest sprint events. In the women's final on 12 September, Jefferson-Wooden ran 10.62 seconds with a wind of -0.2 m/s, just one hundredth slower than the personal best of 10.61 she had set a year earlier at the World Championships in Tokyo. According to the official World Athletics results, Olympic champion Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia finished behind her in 10.74, with American Sha'Carri Richardson third in 10.76. A few minutes later, Bednarek celebrated victory in the men's final with 9.85 seconds in a wind of -0.6 m/s, ahead of reigning world champion Oblique Seville of Jamaica, who ran 9.90. That outcome made the evening at the National Athletics Centre particularly successful for American sprinting, as US athletes won both bronze medals in addition to both golds.
Jefferson-Wooden confirms status as the leading 100-metre sprinter
The 10.62 performance was not only a winning one, but also one of the most valuable sprints of the entire season. World Athletics described her performance as the joint seventh-fastest 100-metre result in history, while the Associated Press reported that the time also gave her the world-leading mark for 2026. The quality of her opponents adds particular significance to the victory: Alfred is the 100-metre Olympic champion from Paris 2024, while Richardson is the world champion from Budapest 2023. Jefferson-Wooden therefore defeated, in a single final, two sprinters who had won the previous two major global titles before her rise to the top. The race was also held into a slight headwind, further underlining the value of the 10.62 time.
The American had already shown in the semifinal that she was ready for the title. She won her heat in 10.73, while Richardson finished immediately behind her in 10.75. In the other semifinal, Alfred also ran 10.73, setting up an exceptionally compelling final featuring the reigning world champion, the Olympic champion and the former world champion. In the final, however, Jefferson-Wooden created a clear gap: Alfred finished 0.12 seconds behind and Richardson 0.14 behind. According to the official World Athletics report, Jefferson-Wooden held on to her advantage despite Alfred's strong finish and became the first winner of the women's 100 metres in the history of the new competition.
Her personal best of 10.61 carries additional historical significance. Jefferson-Wooden set it on 14 September 2025 in the final of the World Championships in Tokyo, where she won gold and established a championship record. World Athletics stated at the time that the performance made her the fourth-fastest woman in the history of the event, behind Florence Griffith-Joyner, Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. In Tokyo she also won world titles in the 200 metres and the 4x100-metre relay, so she arrived in Budapest as one of the most prominent athletes of the entire championship. The 10.62 performance showed that even a year later she remained very close to the level at which she achieved the biggest breakthrough of her career.
Alfred and Richardson among the best again, but without an answer to 10.62
Julien Alfred confirmed in Budapest that she remains one of the key figures in global women's sprinting. She finished second in the final in 10.74, and her status as the 2024 Olympic champion further increased the significance of the duel with Jefferson-Wooden. World Athletics states in the athlete's profile that Alfred holds Saint Lucia's national records in the 100 and 200 metres and that in 2024 she delivered her country's first Olympic gold medal in history. Before Budapest, her fastest 100-metre performance of 2026 was 10.70, achieved in late August. Although she came close to her own season's best in the final, Jefferson-Wooden was convincingly faster on this occasion.
Sha'Carri Richardson won bronze in 10.76, giving the United States two athletes on the podium. Behind the leading trio, Jonielle Smith and Tina Clayton both recorded 10.94, with Smith ranked fourth and Clayton fifth according to the official standings. Luxembourg's Patrizia van der Weken finished sixth in 11.06, Jamaica's Lavanya Williams seventh in 11.07, and Britain's Amy Hunt eighth in 11.09. Such depth in the final demonstrated how strongly the Ultimate Championship's selection concept concentrated the world's sprinting elite into only a few races. The competition did not feature traditional preliminary heats; instead, the sprinters entered directly into the semifinals, with the first four from each heat advancing to the final.
Bednarek beats world champion Seville with 9.85
The men's final offered a different dynamic but the same national outcome. Kenny Bednarek won in 9.85 seconds, beating Oblique Seville, the 2025 Tokyo world champion and winner of the 2026 Diamond League Final. Seville finished second in 9.90, while Ronnie Baker took bronze in 9.93. Nigeria's Kayinsola Ajayi also ran 9.93 but was officially ranked fourth. Christian Coleman was fifth in 9.94, Gift Leotlela sixth in 9.98, Olympic 200-metre champion Letsile Tebogo seventh in 10.07, and Akani Simbine eighth in 10.09.
Bednarek reached the final by winning the second semifinal heat in 9.94, ahead of Baker and Ajayi, who both ran 10.00. In the first heat, Seville was fastest in 9.90, Tebogo finished second in 9.95, Coleman third in 9.96, and Leotlela fourth in 10.03. The semifinals had already shown that the final showdown would be extremely close, but Bednarek improved his semifinal time by nine hundredths in the final and pulled away from his main rivals. The victory over Seville was particularly valuable because the Jamaican entered the season as the reigning world champion and one of the most consistent 100-metre sprinters. Before the championship, World Athletics noted that Seville had run below 9.90 several times during 2026 and arrived in Budapest as one of the main favourites.
For Bednarek, the 100-metre title further expanded the profile of a sprinter who had built most of his global reputation over 200 metres. World Athletics lists him as a two-time Olympic silver medallist and one of the world's best sprinters in recent years, while his official 100-metre personal best is 9.79. In 2026, he finished behind Noah Lyles and Ronnie Baker at the US Championships, while at the meeting in Silesia he was second behind Seville. The Budapest final therefore represented an important reversal in their head-to-head rivalry: Bednarek finished ahead of the Jamaican in the most important race of the season's new final competition. At the same time, he showed that his competitiveness over 100 metres is not merely an addition to his 200-metre career, but a genuine threat to the world's best.
United States takes four of the six podium places
Across the two 100-metre finals, American sprinters won four of the six available podium places. Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek took gold, while Richardson and Baker won bronze. Only Alfred and Seville prevented an entirely American sweep of the medals, both by taking silver. That record is particularly interesting because the Ultimate Championship, unlike many major national-team competitions, did not have a strict limit on the number of athletes from a single country in an individual event. World Athletics designed the format so that several elite competitors from the same country could be on the start line if they had earned qualification through titles, rankings or other qualifying criteria.
That is precisely why the concentration of American sprinters in the finals was so pronounced. Bednarek, Baker and Coleman competed in the men's final, while Jefferson-Wooden and Richardson were in the women's final. The format also reduced the margin for error: there were no preliminary heats in the 100 metres, with two semifinals directly determining the eight finalists. The strongest sprinters therefore had to be ready for two very fast races within the same evening, without the opportunity to ease into the competition gradually through several rounds as at the Olympic Games or World Championships. Bednarek and Jefferson-Wooden showed the biggest improvement from their semifinal performances precisely in the final.
First edition of the new season-ending championship
The World Athletics Ultimate Championship was held from 11 to 13 September 2026 at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, the stadium that hosted the 2023 World Championships. According to World Athletics data, 381 athletes from 65 national federations took part in the inaugural edition, with the programme comprising 28 events over three evening sessions. The concept was designed as a season-ending global showdown between Olympic champions, world champions, Diamond League winners and the highest-ranked athletes of the season. The organisers also announced that the competition would be held every two years, which should give the Ultimate Championship a permanent place at the end of the summer athletics season. Budapest was chosen to host the inaugural edition after World Athletics officially unveiled the project in 2024.
The competition also offered the largest overall prize fund World Athletics had announced up to that point for a single athletics event. A total of 10 million US dollars was allocated, with the winner of each individual event receiving 150,000 dollars. Second-place finishers received 75,000 and third-place finishers 40,000 dollars, with prize money also available for the other finalists. That system was one of the key elements of the new project, whose aim was to combine a short competition duration, exceptionally strong fields and significantly greater financial value for an individual victory. By winning the 100-metre titles, Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek therefore gained not only the historic status of the first Ultimate champions in the event, but also 150,000 dollars each.
The National Athletics Centre had a capacity of around 14,000 spectators for this competition, according to World Athletics. The stadium on the banks of the Danube had been the central venue of the 2023 World Championships, and the new event brought some of the world's biggest athletics stars back to the track where world medals had been won three years earlier. That connection was particularly visible in the men's sprint: Seville arrived as the world champion from Tokyo in a city where he had finished fourth in the 100 metres in 2023, while Bednarek now won one of the biggest individual titles of his season in Budapest. For World Athletics, the inaugural edition also served as a test of a shorter, more television-friendly format featuring a large number of finals on each evening.
100-metre victories were the prelude to an even bigger American sprint success
The Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek story did not end with Saturday's 100-metre titles. A day later, on 13 September, both also competed in the 200 metres and completed sprint doubles at the inaugural Ultimate Championship. According to The Guardian's report from the final day of the competition, Jefferson-Wooden won the 200 metres in 21.47 seconds, a performance ranked among the fastest in the history of the event, while Bednarek won in 19.52, at the time the world's fastest performance of the season. Both therefore made the most of the final weekend and transformed the initial American double triumph in the 100 metres into personal double titles. In the context of the entire championship, their achievements became one of the most striking sporting themes of the inaugural edition in Budapest.
For Jefferson-Wooden, however, the 10.62 performance remains the central moment of her appearance in the shortest event. She was only one hundredth away from her personal best and once again defeated a combination of Olympic and world champions in a direct final. Bednarek, meanwhile, beat reigning world champion Seville in the 100 metres while running 9.85 into an unfavourable wind. Together they delivered both inaugural Ultimate 100-metre titles to the United States, while the performances and the composition of the finals showed that the new season finale was not an exhibition addition to the calendar, but a competition featuring elite opposition. Budapest thus gained another major sprinting evening, while Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek secured the first places in the history of the new championship.
Sources:
- World Athletics - official results of the women's 100-metre final and semifinals, including times, standings and wind conditions (link)
- World Athletics - official results of the men's 100-metre final and semifinals in Budapest (link)
- World Athletics - report on Melissa Jefferson-Wooden's 100-metre victory and the historical significance of the 10.62 performance (link)
- World Athletics - data on the inaugural Ultimate Championship, number of events, participants and prize fund (link)
- World Athletics - competition format, schedule and structure of the semifinals and finals (link)
- World Athletics - Melissa Jefferson-Wooden's profile and personal best of 10.61, as well as information on her 2025 world title in Tokyo (link)
- World Athletics - Kenny Bednarek's profile and official personal bests and international medals (link)
- World Athletics - men's 100-metre preview with context on Oblique Seville's season and the main contenders (link)
- World Athletics - original 2024 announcement of the new competition, with information on the biennial cycle and the season-ending concept (link)
- World Athletics - overview of the Ultimate Championship with information on the capacity of the National Athletics Centre and the value of the prizes (link)
- World Athletics - report from Silesia on the Jefferson-Wooden-Alfred and Seville-Bednarek duels during the 2026 season (link)
- World Athletics - report from the 2026 US Championships and Bednarek's 100-metre placing behind Noah Lyles and Ronnie Baker (link)
- Associated Press - report on the victories by Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek, the prize money and the 10.62 performance as the season's world-leading time (link)
- The Guardian - report from the final day of the championship and the 200-metre results of Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek (link)