Athletes compete at the World Masters Athletics Indoor Championships in Daegu in 2017.WMAC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
DAEGU — Olympic champions and veterans will return to competition at the World Masters Athletics Championships Daegu 2026, which opens with a ceremony on Friday and runs Saturday through Sept. 3 at Daegu Stadium and other venues.
Barcelona marathon gold medalist Hwang Young-cho is among the former elite stars entered alongside athletes aged 35 and older. Hwang, who won the men's marathon at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, will compete in the 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) road race. He is also serving as an ambassador for the championships.
Latvia's Dainis Kula, the 1980 Moscow Olympic javelin champion, is entered in the javelin. Jamaican long jumper James Beckford, the 1996 Atlanta Olympic silver medalist, will return to his signature event, while Japan's Nobuharu Asahara, an Olympic 4x100-meter relay silver medalist, will race the 100 meters (328 feet).
Benin's Noélie Yarigo, the bronze medalist in the women's 800 meters at the 2024 World Indoor Championships, is entered in the 400 and 800 meters. American Joetta Clark Diggs, a four-time Olympian best known for the 800 meters, will switch to the 100 and 200 meters in Daegu.
Mongolia's Ser-Od Bat-Ochir will contest the 5,000 meters and half marathon. Bat-Ochir became the first athlete to run six Olympic marathons when he completed the Paris 2024 race. The streak began at Athens 2004.
The championships are open to athletes aged 35 and older regardless of whether they previously competed at the elite level. Participants compete in age groups across 34 track, field and road events.
Reporters tour Daegu Stadium in Suseong District, Daegu, during a media briefing ahead of the World Masters Athletics Championships on Aug. 13.NEWS1
The organizing committee said this month that 11,225 athletes and accompanying participants from 106 countries had registered. Daegu Metropolitan City and World Masters Athletics are co-hosting the event.
Daegu hosted the World Athletics Championships in 2011 and the indoor edition of the masters championships in 2017. Staging the outdoor event makes it the only city to have held both.
"We hope residents will come to the venues, see the passion and determination of athletes who once shone on the world stage and cheer them on," said Jin Ki-hoon, secretary-general of the organizing committee.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
