Backyard Ultra World Championship

It starts on Saturday, 17 October 2026 at 12:00 UTC. Every national site starts at the same moment, so local start times differ: 07:00 Central at the US site in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, 13:00 BST in the UK, 14:00 CEST in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and 23:00 AEDT in Australia. The race has no fixed finish and ends when only one runner at each site can still complete a yard.

Everywhere at once. Each qualified country runs its own satellite race on home soil. Published venues include Bell Buckle, Tennessee for Team USA, Simmerath in North Rhine-Westphalia for Team Germany, Retie for Belgium, Zeewolde for the Netherlands, Sherwood Pines Forest in Nottinghamshire for the United Kingdom, Kembla Grange in New South Wales for Australia and Seekirchen am Wallersee for Austria. As of October 16, 2026, the official 2027 qualifying page lists 68 national-championship entries for 17 October 2026. These listings are not a confirmed starter count. Previews that mention 74 countries use an earlier count: Benin, Botswana, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Zimbabwe no longer appear, and Russian runners are listed as neutral athletes (AIN). On race day the organizer’s live results listed 69 nations, the 68 entries plus the AIN team. Mauritius withdrew amid severe civil unrest and an overnight curfew, and Singapore because smoke haze from fires in Indonesia had pushed air quality into the unhealthy range, so 67 nations started.

Each national team has up to 15 starting places and every starter scores. Each completed yard counts as one point, and the country with the most points is the World Team Champion. Each runner also competes for the individual national title at their site. The organizer’s live results page also sorts the nations into four classes: the Super Six (the United States, Japan, Belgium, Australia, the AIN team and France), then AAA, AA and A.

Winners of a country’s Silver Ticket races earn a place directly. The remaining places go to the best at-large performances in the qualifying window, which ran from 16 August 2024 to 15 August 2026. The published selection lists also name reserves.

As checked on 16 October 2026, the official list names Hendrik Boury (100 yards), Norman Mascher-Aspensjö (80), Martin Stiller (66), Niko Langner (61, Silver Ticket), Markus Habermann (59), Dennis Musche (54), Jannik Giesen (53, Silver Ticket), Adrian Gröschner (53), Philip Mete (52), Marius Seith (49, Silver Ticket), Alexander Schult (49), Luis Vesely (49), Devin Agca (45), Matthias Völkel (42) and Jörn Schlag (30, Silver Ticket). The German team site presents the same fifteen. Andrea Mehner, Adrian Rewig, Ulrich Trodler, Christian Jakl, Manfred Schott and Justus Fechner are the reserves. Last Soul Ultra finalists Kim Gottwald and Ayyoub El Osrouti are not on the list. Rosters are marked subject to change.

Use the organizer’s live results page at wtc2026.bigsbackyardultra.com. It shows every nation, yard and runner, lists who has stopped and why, and links the national streams that teams have published. The official world livestream on the Backyard Ultra Channel on YouTube went live at 11:45 UTC on 17 October; its first stream covered hours 1 to 10, so later hours appear in the channel’s streams list. Team Germany embeds its partner’s stream on its Live page, and Canada, Australia, France and the Netherlands are among the nations streaming their own races.

Belgium won the 2024 edition with 1,147 yards, ahead of Australia (971) and the United States (969), according to the organizer’s homepage. Merijn Geerts, Ivo Steyaert and Frank Gielen each completed 110 yards at the Belgian site.

The individual championship returns to Bell Buckle, Tennessee on 16 October 2027 with a 75-runner field. The top 50 national champions from the 2026 team championship earn places, plus at-large runners selected from performances between 16 August 2025 and 15 August 2027.