Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek Take $300,000 Apiece After Sprint Doubles at Inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship

American sprinters Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Kenny Bednarek each completed the 100m/200m double at the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 11–13, collecting $300,000 apiece in what the governing body billed as the richest prize pool in track and field history.

Jefferson-Wooden capped her weekend with a 200m win in 21.47 seconds — the fourth-fastest time ever recorded, and into a 0.6 meter/second headwind. Only Florence Griffith Joyner’s 21.34 world record from 1988 and Shericka Jackson’s runs of 21.41 (2023) and 21.45 (2022) have been faster. She finished ahead of 2024 Olympic champion Gabby Thomas, who clocked 21.77, a day after beating 2024 Olympic 100m gold medalist Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia.

The 2024 Olympic 100m bronze medalist had already swept the two sprints at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, her breakout meet on the global stage.

Bednarek, a two-time Olympic silver medalist at 200m, delivered the biggest victories of his career. His 19.52 personal best in the 200m made him the seventh-fastest man in history, edging 2024 Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana. On Saturday, he upset reigning world 100m champion Oblique Seville of Jamaica.

“Performance-wise and execution-wise, I give myself an A-plus,” Bednarek told NBC Sports’ Lewis Johnson. “This year was a year just to make some progress. I did that.”

The sprint fields were missing American Noah Lyles, the 2024 Olympic 100m champion and four-time world 200m titleholder, who is sidelined by injury. Lyles won the 2025 world 200m crown in the same 19.52 Bednarek ran Sunday.

The biennial Ultimate Championship convenes Olympic gold medalists, world champions and other top-ranked athletes with no per-country limits. Event winners earned $150,000 from a $10 million total pot.

Hurdles history, too

Brazil’s Alison dos Santos ran 45.98 in the 400m hurdles on Sunday — the third-fastest time in history and just 18 hundredths of a second off the world record of 45.80 he set in Zurich on Aug. 27, breaking Karsten Warholm’s mark of 45.94 from the Tokyo Olympics. American Rai Benjamin, the Olympic and world champion, was second in 46.40 after also finishing runner-up in the flat 400m on Saturday. Warholm took third in 46.78, matching Kevin Young’s 1992 Barcelona-winning time that stood as the world record until 2021. Between them, dos Santos, Benjamin and Warholm own the 37 fastest times ever run.

NBC Sports, part of Comcast Corporation (CMCSA, $25.20, up 0.6%), carried the event coverage. Comcast shares closed the prior session at $25.05, with the company’s market capitalization at roughly $92.5 billion.

Source: original release

What to watch

• Possible adjustments to Jefferson-Wooden’s and Bednarek’s 2027 competition schedules following their championship doubles.
• Noah Lyles’ recovery timeline and return to sprint competition.
• Whether the Ultimate Championship’s $10 million prize model shapes future World Athletics event structures.
• Comcast’s next quarterly earnings report for updated results across its Media segment.