Melissa Jefferson-Wooden confirmed she’s the new sprint queen at the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship. Kenny Bednarek staked his own claim among the world’s fastest men.
Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek, who share both a Central Florida training group and a desire to win their first individual Olympic gold medals in 2028, swept the 100m and 200m titles at the biggest track and field meet of 2026.
Each leave the the World Ultimate Championship with $300,000 and confidence going into 2027, which will include the last World Championships before the 2028 LA Games.
Jefferson-Wooden won Sunday’s 200m in 21.47 seconds — the fourth-fastest time in history, impressively into a .6 meter/second headwind — over 2024 Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas (21.77).
A day earlier, she ran what she called the best 100m of her life to win over 2024 Olympic gold medalist Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia.
“Those girls, they work really hard to get where they are,” Jefferson-Wooden said. “They have the accolades for a reason. I’m just inspired to make some of my own.”
The only faster women’s 200m times were Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record of 21.34 from 1988, plus two times from Jamaican Shericka Jackson — 21.41 in 2023 and 21.45 in 2022.
Jefferson-Wooden, the 2024 Olympic 100m bronze medalist, ascended from “a village kid” from South Carolina to become the world’s top female sprinter over the last two seasons.
She also swept the 100m and 200m at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, her breakout international meet.
Bednarek, a 27-year-old from small-town Wisconsin, had finished second so many times in big races — including the last two Olympic 200m finals — that he started calling himself the “Silver Surfer.”
Yet Bednarek, who is more widely known as Kung Fu Kenny as he races in a headband, was peerless on Saturday and Sunday in Budapest.
He took Sunday’s 200m in a personal best 19.52 seconds, becoming the seventh-fastest man in history. He prevailed over 2024 Olympic gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana.
A day earlier, he upset 2025 World champion Oblique Seville of Jamaica in the 100m.
“I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but I feel like this year was a big year and a big step in my career,” Bednarek said.
The fields lacked American Noah Lyles, the 2024 Olympic 100m gold medalist and four-time world 200m champion who is out injured.
Lyles won the 2025 World 200m title in the same 19.52 and still owns the world’s fastest 100m time of 2026 — 9.79 with a .8 m/s tailwind, which is six hundredths faster than Bednarek ran Saturday into a .6 m/s headwind.
The Ultimate Championship is a new, biennial meet that gathers reigning Olympic gold medalists and world champions and the world’s other top-ranked athletes. There are no limits on athlete per country.
Event winners receive $150,000 out of a total pot of $10 million, which World Athletics called the richest in the sport’s history.
Also Sunday, Brazilian Alison dos Santos ran the third-fastest 400m hurdles time in history — 45.98, just 18 hundredths off his newly minted world record.
Dos Santos pulled away from American Rai Benjamin, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist and 2025 World champion who was second in 46.40. Benjamin was also second in the flat 400m on Saturday.
Back on Aug. 27, dos Santos ran 45.80 in Zurich, Switzerland, breaking Norwegian Karsten Warholm’s world record of 45.94 set at the Tokyo Olympics.
Warholm was third Sunday in 46.78, matching American Kevin Young’s winning time from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that stood as the world record until he broke it in 2021.
Dos Santos, Benjamin and Warholm combine to own the 37 fastest times in history.
American Jasmine Jones took the women’s 400m hurdles in 52.45 for the biggest win of her career, one year after taking silver at the World Championships.
Sydney Levrone, the two-time Olympic 400m hurdles gold medalist and world record holder, did not compete this season as she had daughter Savannah in July.
Brit Josh Kerr held off Australian Cameron Myers to win the 1500m in 3:29.35, two months after breaking the world record in the mile (3:42.66).
Americans finished third (Hobbs Kessler), fourth (2024 Olympic gold medalist Cole Hocker) and fifth (2024 Olympic bronze medalist Yared Nuguse), all within three hundredths of each other.
In the 800m, Olympic bronze medalist Djamel Sedjati of Algeria overtook Olympic gold medalist Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya and then Olympic silver medalist Marco Arop of Canada in the last 100 meters to win in 1:41.91.
Italian Gianmarco Tamberi outdueled American JuVaughn Harrison in the high jump. Tamberi cleared 2.37 meters, the same height that he and Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim cleared to share the gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
Javelin thrower Rumesh Pathirage won the biggest track and field title ever for a Sri Lankan. In one of the most international events in all of sports, the field also included throwers from Grenada, Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, Pakistan, Kenya, Poland and the U.S.
The U.S. won the mixed-gender 4x400m relay with Chris Bailey, Alexis Holmes, Jacory Patterson and Aaliyah Butler.
The track and field season continues this Saturday and Sunday with the World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen, live on Peacock.
