Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Kenny Bednarek absolutely torched the track, snagging both 100m titles at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship. This isn’t just another meet, folks; it is the biggest track and field event of 2026, and the Americans showed up to dominate right from the jump.
USA Speed Takes Center Stage
Jefferson-Wooden, already a beast with a 2025 World title under her belt, clocked a blistering 10.62 seconds. Think about that: she was only one hundredth off her personal best! She left Olympic gold medalist Julien Alfred in her dust, who ran 10.74, and even pushed past Olympic silver medalist Sha’Carri Richardson, who finished at 10.76. Since bringing home bronze from the Paris Games, Jefferson-Wooden has only had one 100m defeat, cementing her spot as the fourth-fastest woman in history. We’re talking legendary company here, right behind Florence Griffith Joyner, Elaine Thompson-Herah, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
Then there is Kenny Bednarek, a guy known for his two Olympic 200m silver medals, who just nabbed the biggest individual race win of his whole career. He flew to a 9.85, beating 2025 World champion Oblique Seville by a solid five hundredths. And get this, he’s running the 200m on Sunday, an event where he is literally the world’s fastest man this year. Talk about a statement weekend! Too bad Paris Olympic 100m gold medalist Noah Lyles is out injured, it would have been wild to see him compete.
Record Books Getting Rewritten
The excitement wasn’t just in the 100m. Collen Kebinatshipi from Botswana threw down a joint-fifth-fastest 400m in history, clocking 43.39 seconds. The 2025 World champion won by a massive 76 hundredths over America’s Rai Benjamin, who’s pulling double duty this weekend after winning 2024 Olympic 400m hurdles gold. Kebinatshipi has gone sub-44 seconds six times this year, a single-year record. He got a perfect start in Budapest and kept that momentum rolling.
And how about Audrey Werro from Switzerland? This 22-year-old had an undefeated, breakout season and capped it by taking the women’s 800m in 1:55.88. She comfortably beat 2024 Olympic gold medalist Keely Hodgkinson. Werro was the 33rd-fastest woman in history back in June, and since then, she’s run the third, fourth, and fifth-fastest times ever, all of them the fastest since the world record was set way back in 1983! Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic also extended her undefeated season, winning the women’s 400m in 49.07 after surging from last to first. Sydney Levrone, the 2025 World champion, sat out this season after having her daughter Savannah.
This first-ever World Athletics Ultimate Championship is bringing serious heat, with a whopping $150,000 prize for event winners and a $10 million overall prize pool. That is the richest prize pool in the history of the sport! Catch all the action wrapping up Sunday from 12-3 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, with the men’s and women’s 200m, 400m hurdles, and the men’s 1500m still to come. You know Bednarek’s 200m is gonna be must-watch TV!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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