2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships Preview – iRunFar

Mounted-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 document holders — returning, the fifteenth version of the widely biennial world championships guarantees a powerful discipline in each the lads’s and ladies’s races. And so long as climate situations are favorable, the world information will possible be challenged.

The present world information 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 listing can also be out there.

IAU 24-Hour World Championships Historical past

The inaugural IAU 24-Hour World Monitor Championships had been first staged by the Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners (IAU) in 2001. The truth that it was held on a observe 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 along with the IAU 24-Hour European Championships. This 2025 version has a document 397 entries, with 222 males and 175 girls on the beginning lists from 47 nationwide federations. That is means up from the final version in 2023, the place 245 entrants raced, with 138 males and 107 girls.

Though latest rankings at all times play an element in predicting main contenders, the outcomes of those fixed-time world championships could be tough to foretell, as athletes could 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 at all times point out an athlete’s present type.

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 high three runners, with the very best cumulative distance profitable. In 2023, Lithuania received the lads’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 be taught extra, learn our Historical past and Evolution of the 24-Hour World Data article or try our Knowledge-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 as we speak.

2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships Girls to Watch

Podium Potential Girls

The ladies’s world document has been damaged on the final three world championships. In 2017, Poland’s Patrycja Bereznowska set a then-world document of 259.991k (161.551 miles). Two years later, in 2019, Camille Herron improved the document 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 may have an effect on her capacity to run. Nakata has additionally been working by means of well being points, however seems to be racing.

In 2024, Herron ran 263.004k (163.423 miles) on the Soochow Monitor 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 working to earlier requirements, may find yourself on the rostrum, however there are many others with the credentials to problem them.

Holly Ranson of Australia leads the 2025 rankings with 263.548k (163.761 miles) achieved on the Sri Chinmoy 24/48 Monitor Pageant in her residence nation, in March. In doing so, she set an Australian 24-hour document, in addition to an Australian 100-mile document.

Nice Britain’s Sarah Webster, the bronze medalist at final yr’s IAU 100k World Championships, an occasion wherein Nakata completed fourth simply behind her, may also be one to look at. She made the step as much as 24 hours in April this yr, 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.

Different Girls 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 Monitor 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 Monitor 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 listing.

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 document 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 information in each disciplines. He ran within the latest Adidas “Chasing 100” on the finish of August, recording 6:04:10 for 100k, barely sooner than his official world document of 6:05:35, in an aided advertising and marketing occasion by the model. The occasion was not run below World Athletics guidelines, and the instances run are usually not record-eligible.

Fotis Zisimopoulos (Greece) was the 2023 silver medalist, working 292.254k (181.598 miles), his private greatest. He’s a four-time winner of Greece’s basic Spartathlon and the present course document holder. He has run a couple of shorter occasions within the final 12 months however skipped this yr’s Spartathlon.

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 type.

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 up to now.

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 Monitor 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

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The 24-hour occasion format is exclusive in comparison with many different types of ultrarunning. There’ll at all times be rising runners slightly below the radar, ready to make a breakthrough. Tell us if you happen to assume now we have missed somebody!