Charlie Lawrence and Courtney Olsen win the 100 km world titles for a US sweep in Spain

The 33rd IAU 100 km World Championships were run on Sunday in Ames, in Galicia, on a 20-lap course: a 4.8 km opener and nineteen 5 km loops through town and along bike paths. It started at 8:30 am at 16 degrees and finished at 32. Runners from 44 countries lined up; 115 men and 79 women finished.

Masato Tanaka of Japan went out alone and led by 2:10 after six laps. Charlie Lawrence, the 50-mile world record holder, ran laps seven and eight in 17:40 and 17:45, took the lead on lap ten and passed halfway in 3:00:34, briefly on world record pace. He slowed, but nobody closed. Aleksandr Sorokin, who holds that record at 6:05:35, moved into second on lap 12 and finished there in 6:12:41, behind Lawrence's 6:09:25, about two minutes outside the American's own national record. Alex Milne of Britain, the 50 km world champion, was third in 6:17:50. The United States won the men's team race from Britain by 44 seconds.

Miho Nakata led the women's race for 75 km, with Satu Lipiäinen for company early on, and was still a minute ahead with 20 km to go. Courtney Olsen, sixth after a quarter of the race, had been running faster than the leaders since lap eight, caught Nakata on lap 17 and won in 7:10:31. Nakata held second in 7:11:57, and Gemma Arenas gave the home crowd a bronze medal. Olsen, 39, also won the masters title; she was tenth at these championships in 2024. Croatia took the women's team gold.

Two Americans, two world titles, on a day that got 16 degrees hotter while they ran.

Sources: International Association of Ultrarunners; iRunFar; University of Minnesota Athletics.