Fastened-time ultrarunning followers, prepare! The 2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships happen on Saturday, October 18, in Albi, France.
The race begins at 10 a.m. native time and follows a 1.5-kilometer (0.93 miles) course looping in and across the Albi stadium. The Albi venue in southwest France is not any stranger to internet hosting championships, having held the 2016 IAU 24-Hour European Championships and the 2019 IAU 24-Hour World Championships.
With each 2023 champions — Aleksandr Sorokin (Lithuania) and Miho Nakata (Japan), who’re additionally the world report holders — returning, the fifteenth version of the widely biennial world championships guarantees a powerful discipline in each the boys’s and ladies’s races. And so long as climate situations are favorable, the world data will seemingly be challenged.
The present world data for the 24-hour distance are held by Sorokin, who ran 319.614k (198.599 miles) on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships in Italy, and Miho Nakata (Japan), who ran 270.363k (167.996 miles) on the final version of this occasion in 2023.
On this article, we take a fast have a look at the historical past of this world championships and a deeper have a look at who we anticipate to be on the entrance of the ladies’s and males’s races. A full entrants checklist can also be accessible.
Japan’s Miho Nakata working laborious through the closing hour of her world-record-setting effort on the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships, held in Taipei on December 1 and a couple of. Picture: Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners
IAU 24-Hour World Championships Historical past
The inaugural IAU 24-Hour World Observe Championships have been first staged by the Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners (IAU) in 2001. The truth that it was held on a monitor restricted the entries to 54 rivals. Two years later, the primary IAU 24-Hour World Championships on a street loop befell, and 141 athletes participated. It was held together with the IAU 24-Hour European Championships. This 2025 version has a report 397 entries, with 222 males and 175 girls on the beginning lists from 47 nationwide federations. That is method up from the final version in 2023, the place 245 entrants raced, with 138 males and 107 girls.
Though latest rankings all the time play an element in predicting main contenders, the outcomes of those fixed-time world championships will be tough to foretell, as athletes might have run a qualifying distance way back to 12 to 18 months, or extra. So, though previous performances and {qualifications} is usually a information, they don’t all the time point out an athlete’s present kind.
As with all IAU occasions, there are each particular person and staff occasions. The staff result’s calculated by including the cumulative distances of a nation’s prime three runners, with the very best cumulative distance profitable. In 2023, Lithuania received the boys’s occasion, with Poland and Nice Britain inserting second and third. Poland received the 2023 girls’s staff occasion, adopted by Japan and the Czech Republic.
To study extra, learn our Historical past and Evolution of the 24-Hour World Data article or take a look at our Information-Pushed Primer on the IAU 24-Hour World Championships article, the latter of which was written earlier than the 2023 occasion however is simply as related at this time.
Lithuania’s Aleksandr Sorokin on his method to profitable the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships. Picture: Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners
2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships Ladies to Watch
Podium Potential Ladies
The ladies’s world report has been damaged on the final three world championships. In 2017, Poland’s Patrycja Bereznowska set a then-world report of 259.991k (161.551 miles). Two years later, in 2019, Camille Herron improved the report to 270.116k (167.842 miles). On the final occasion in 2023, Japan’s Miho Nakata pushed the mark up only a tiny bit additional, to 270.363k (167.996 miles).
All three of those athletes are entered and set to be on the beginning line, though it’s value noting that Herron broke her wrist in a rollerblading accident in September, which might have an effect on her means to run. Nakata has additionally been working by way of well being points, however seems to be racing.
In 2024, Herron ran 263.004k (163.423 miles) on the Soochow Observe Invitational in Taipei and stays the one feminine athlete to have received IAU world titles within the 50k, 100k, and 24-hour occasions. Bereznowska ran 263.178k (163.531 miles) on the 2024 ABM Jędraszek UltraPark Weekend and, since profitable the world title in Belfast in 2017, has been some of the constant 24-hour performers. Nakata ran 249.198k (154.844 miles) on the 2024 Hirosaki 24-Hour Run, after which 249.303k (154.909 miles) on the 2025 Jingu Gaien 24-Hour Problem.
All three, if operating to earlier requirements, might find yourself on the rostrum, however there are many others with the credentials to problem them.
Camille Herron on her method to setting a world report on the 2019 IAU 24-Hour World Championships. Picture: U.S. Nationwide 24 Hour Operating Group
Holly Ranson of Australia leads the 2025 rankings with 263.548k (163.761 miles) achieved on the Sri Chinmoy 24/48 Observe Pageant in her house nation, in March. In doing so, she set an Australian 24-hour report, in addition to an Australian 100-mile report.
Nice Britain’s Sarah Webster, the bronze medalist ultimately 12 months’s IAU 100k World Championships, an occasion through which Nakata completed fourth simply behind her, can even be one to observe. She made the step as much as 24 hours in April this 12 months, recording 243.393k (151.237 miles) off a 14:05 100-mile break up, to qualify for the this race.
Noora Honkala (Finland) has a greatest 24-hour distance of 246.496k (153.165 miles) from the 2022 Loutraki Worldwide Ultramarathon Pageant, her final critical try at 24 hours. She ran near Herron within the 2023 Spartathlon, inserting second, and returned to win the race in 2024. She additionally positioned eighth on the 2023 Comrades Marathon and eleventh in 2025.
Japan’s Miho Nakata celebrates after setting a brand new girls’s 24-hour world report on the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships in Taipei on December 1 and a couple of. Picture: Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners
Different Ladies to Watch and Their 24-Hour Private Bests
Hanna Bergwall (Sweden) – 241.269k on the 2025 VXO Ultrafest
Therese Fredriksson (Sweden) – 241.658k on the 2025 VXO Ultrafest
Stéphanie Gicquel (France) – 253.580k on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships
Corinne Gruffaz (France) – 245.549k on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships
Lauren Jones (U.S.) – 247.923k on the 2024 Desert Solstice Observe Invitational
Aiko Kanematsu (Japan) – 247.070k on the 2023 Jingu Gaien 24-Hour Problem
Marisa Lizak (U.S) – 244.756k on the 2024 Desert Solstice Observe Invitational
Olena Shevchenko (Ukraine) – 254.463k on the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships
Anne Stephan (Germany) – 250.572k on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships
Daniela Tarnutzer (Switzerland) – 252.822k on the 2024 24-Stundenlauf Aare-Insel Brugg
Jo Zakrzewski (Nice Britain) – 247.984k on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships
[Editor’s Note: Jo Zakrzewski was disqualified from the 2023 Manchester To Liverpool Ultra 50 Mile for traveling in a car for a few miles of the race and then crossing the finish line. She received a one-year ban from U.K. Athletics.]
2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships Males to Watch
Podium Potential Males
The highest 4 finishers from the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships are all on the beginning checklist.
Aleksandr Sorokin from Lithuania is the defending champion from 2023, when he ran 301.790k (187.523 miles). He’s the present males’s world report holder with 319.614k (198.598 miles), set when profitable the 2022 IAU European 24-Hour Championships. During the last 5 years, he has been spectacular at each 24-hour and 100k occasions, having world data in each disciplines. He ran within the latest Adidas “Chasing 100” on the finish of August, recording 6:04:10 for 100k, barely quicker than his official world report of 6:05:35, in an aided advertising occasion by the model. The occasion was not run underneath World Athletics guidelines, and the occasions run will not be record-eligible.
Aleksandr Sorokin, after profitable the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships, in a brand new world report. Picture: Marius Antanaitis display seize from race video
Fotis Zisimopoulos (Greece) was the 2023 silver medalist, operating 292.254k (181.598 miles), his private greatest. He’s a four-time winner of Greece’s basic Spartathlon and the present course report holder. He has run a number of shorter occasions within the final 12 months however skipped this 12 months’s Spartathlon.
Fotis Zisimopoulos (middle) celebrates profitable the 2023 Spartathlon. Picture: Sparta Images Membership/Flickr
Andrii Tkachuk of Ukraine was third on the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships with 284.540k (176.804 miles). He ran a private better of 295.363k (183.530 miles) on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships. A string of sturdy outcomes at shorter races previously two years reveals kind.
Francisco Mariano Martinez of Spain was fourth within the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships with 282.061k (175.264 miles), which is his private greatest thus far.
Andrzej Piotrowski was sixth within the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships with 265.886k (165.213 miles). His private greatest is 301.858k (187.565 miles), which he ran on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships when inserting second behind Sorokin. He’s one in every of solely three males to have bettered 300k (186.411 miles). Sorokin and retired Greek extremely legend Yiannis Kouros are the opposite two.
Elov Olsson of Sweden ran 284.669k (176.885 miles) on the 2025 VXO Ultrafest, splitting 100 miles in 12:50:31. He ran a 6:30:14 on the 2022 IAU 100k World Championships, the place he positioned seventh, and he additionally received the 2023 Tunnel Hill 100 Mile with 11:26:19.
Different Males to Watch and Their 24-Hour Private Bests
Robbie Britton (Nice Britain) – 277.439k on the 2023 24 Hours of Torino
Matthew Subject (Nice Britain) – 281.303k on the 2024 Gloucester 24-Hour Observe Race Invitational
Chris Kelly (Nice Britain) – 273.375k on the 2024 24 Hours of Albi
Dan Lawson (Nice Britain) – 273.003k on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships
Amar Singh Devanda (India) – 272.537k on the 2024 IAU 24-Hour Asia and Oceania Championships
Stijn Van Lokeren (Belgium) – 280.020k on the 2025 Belgian 24-Hour Championships
Luka Videtič (Slovenia) – 265.322k on the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships
Marco Visintini (Italy) – 288.437k on the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships
Robbie Britton operating the 2021 Valencia Marathon. Picture: Zoe Salt
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The 24-hour occasion format is exclusive in comparison with many different types of ultrarunning. There’ll all the time be rising runners somewhat underneath the radar, ready to make a breakthrough. Tell us should you suppose we’ve got missed somebody!
