Geerts and Steyaert Run 124 Yards for Backyard World Record

RETIE, Belgium, October 22, 2026 — Merijn Geerts and Ivo Steyaert have set a new backyard ultra world record of 124 yards. Running side by side at Belgium’s national race of the 2026 Backyard Ultra World Team Championship, the two Belgians completed their 124th yard on Thursday afternoon. Neither started the 125th yard when it began at 16:00 UTC.

That is 831.49 km, or about 516.7 miles, in 124 hours, and five yards more than Phil Gore’s 119 at the Dead Cow Gully Backyard Ultra in Australia in June 2025. On the way, the pair became the first runners to cover 500 miles in a backyard, at 120 yards. Because they stopped together, Belgium’s race has no winner.

How the record fell

Every national race of the championship started at the same moment, 12:00 UTC on Saturday, October 17. By the morning of Thursday, October 22, Geerts and Steyaert were the last two runners left anywhere in the world. Mark Dowdle had won the US race in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, with 107 yards, and Kazuhiro Kawahata Japan’s with 105.

The organizer’s live results show the pair finishing every late yard within a second or two of each other. They completed yard 119, equalling Gore’s record, in 54:08 at about 10:54 UTC. Yard 120, the first beyond it, took 56:20 for Geerts and 56:21 for Steyaert. Belgian broadcaster VRT reported that teammates formed a guard of honor after the 120th loop and that dozens of supporters lined the course in the woods around Retie.

Four more yards followed, each a little slower. Their last three took 57:14, 57:03 and 57:12, timed identically for both men and close to the 60-minute limit. The live results then list both as not starting yard 125.

Key facts

Why there was no winner

A backyard ultra is won by the last runner to complete a yard after everyone else has stopped. If the final runners stop on the same yard, the race has no winner and no assist. That is what happened in Retie. It also happened at Belgium’s team-championship races in 2022 and 2024.

The yards still count. The organizer called the shared 101 yards of 2022 a world record, and the shared 110 of 2024 is listed in record progressions the same way. When we checked on October 22, neither runner had explained publicly why they stopped together. The organizer’s national-record table still listed Gore’s 119 as the overall best and Jan Vandekerckhove’s 115 as Belgium’s record.

Third shared record for the pair

Geerts and Steyaert have now raised the overall record together three times, all at Belgium’s team-championship race: 101 yards in 2022, 110 in 2024 with Frank Gielen, and 124 in 2026. Geerts also set a record of 90 yards on his own in 2022. Steyaert was Gore’s assist at Big’s Backyard Ultra in 2025 with 113, one yard behind Gore’s winning 114. Both also race six-day events.

The record has risen quickly. No one had completed 100 yards before October 2022. Our backyard ultra world record guide has the full progression since the first Big’s in 2011, the women’s record of 95 yards, which was not at stake this week, and the results that do not count.

The team result

The championship is scored by adding every yard each nation’s 15 runners complete. When the Belgian race ended, the organizer’s live results showed the United States on top with 1,120 yards, ahead of Australia with 1,069, Belgium with 1,058 and Japan with 1,038. The organizer had not yet published a final classification. Spain’s race, stopped at yard 25 by severe weather, will be re-run to decide its national champion. The championship guide lists every national winner.

What happens next

The team championship is also the first step towards the 2027 individual world championship at Big’s Backyard Ultra on October 16, 2027. The top 50 national champions earn places there. Belgium’s race had no winner, so neither Geerts nor Steyaert has a champion’s berth. Their 124 yards are longer than every result on the organizer’s At-Large list, which fills the other 25 places, but that list had not yet been updated with team-championship results.

We will update this story and the record guide when the organizer updates its record table or publishes a final classification.

How we reported this

Yards, lap times and team totals come from the organizer’s live results feed, which we followed throughout the race and last read at 16:07 UTC on October 22, 2026. Distances use the organizer’s 6.7056 km per yard. Details from the course come from VRT and Sporza, which reported from Retie. We did not speak to the runners or the organizer before publication.