Kenny Bednarek Completes Sprint Double at Inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championships

Rice Lake, Wisconsin native Kenny Bednarek capped a breakout 2026 season by winning both the 100 and 200 meters at the first-ever World Athletics Ultimate Championships in Budapest, Hungary, walking away with a sprint double and $300,000 in prize money.

Bednarek, 27, entered the meet as a favorite in the 200, a distance in which he has twice earned Olympic silver. He delivered on that expectation on Sunday, Sept. 13, clocking 19.52 seconds — a personal best and the seventh-fastest time ever recorded in the event. The run shaved a full tenth of a second off his season best and beat his prior record of 19.57, set in 2024. The field he defeated included 2024 Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana.

The surprise came two days earlier. On Friday, Sept. 11, Bednarek won the 100 meters in 9.85 seconds, edging Jamaica’s Oblique Seville by five-hundredths of a second. It marked the first global title of his career at the distance.

“Performance-wise and execution-wise, I give myself an A-plus right now just because there’s a lot of things I’ve been trying to work on, and I put it together today and the rest of the week,” Bednarek told NBC after the meet.

The Ultimate Championship is a new biennial competition designed to gather the world’s top track and field athletes without caps on entries per country. Each event winner earns $150,000, meaning Bednarek’s double was worth $300,000.

Notable absences shaped the sprints. Noah Lyles, who holds the 2026 world lead in the 100 at 9.79 seconds, was sidelined by a hamstring injury and watched from the stands alongside Usain Bolt.

The broadcast angle

The meet’s profile in the U.S. was carried by Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA), whose NBC Sports unit covered the championships and conducted the post-race interview with Bednarek. NBC has long been the American broadcast home for top-tier track events, including the Olympics, and the new championship gives the network another marquee athletics property in non-Olympic years. Comcast shares closed the most recent session at $25.20, up 0.18% from a prior close of $25.16, valuing the company at roughly $92.5 billion.

What to watch

• Whether Bednarek carries his late-season form into the 2027 outdoor campaign, with the Ultimate Championships scheduled to return every other year.
• NBC’s coverage and audience numbers for the new championship as Comcast evaluates its sports rights portfolio.
• A potential 100-meter showdown between Bednarek and a healthy Noah Lyles, who holds the 2026 world lead at 9.79 seconds.

Source: original release