Sha'Carrie Richardson will race under the London sky for the first time as part of Athlos, the all-female track league that is charging toward a dramatically different future for women's athletics. The league, founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is expanding to a two-city format in 2026 — launching in London with a $2.1 million prize pot and followed by its third consecutive year in New York — in what feels like a genuine reimagining of how track and field rewards its athletes.
The significance of this expansion goes beyond adding another competitive venue. For decades, women's track has struggled to secure the kind of commercial investment and public attention that male-dominated sports command as a matter of course. Athlos is attempting to solve that by treating elite female runners not as secondary performers but as equity-holding partners in a venture designed to rival the prestige of Formula 1.
The 2026 season will feature seven disciplines across both cities: the 100-meter hurdles, 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, mile, and long jump. Athletes competing at the StoneX Stadium in Barnet and the Icahn Stadium in New York can earn up to $65,000 per individual event, with overall champions receiving an additional $25,000. An athlete winning in both London and New York could pocket $155,000 — a sum that would have been unthinkable in women's professional track just a few years ago.
What distinguishes Athlos from traditional meets is its structural commitment to female athletes. Beyond prize money, participants receive equity stakes in the league itself, meaning they benefit financially if the venture grows and succeeds. Gabby Thomas, the Olympic 200-meter champion and Harvard graduate, underscored why this matters. "We get a share in what we're helping to build and that's really rare in this sport," she told BBC Sport. "How can we fail as a league when we have the athletes as partners and helping to build it?"
The confirmed roster for 2026 includes some of the world's fastest women: American sprinters Sha'Carri Richardson, Tara Woodhall-Davis, and Masai Russell, alongside Dominican sprinter Marileidy Paulino. The 2025 inaugural New York event drew winners like Great Britain's Keely Hodgkinson to a packed Icahn Stadium filled with live music and Tiffany & Co crowns presented by Serena Williams — a deliberate pivot from traditional medal ceremonies toward celebration and spectacle.
Ohanian frames his ambition in unapologetic terms. "I've long been very obsessed with this 'F1 for track and field' analogy," he explained. "We come to expect the fastest cars in the world to tour the greatest global cities, and for people to come out and watch and celebrate this excellence." His stated goal is to eventually build a worldwide, season-long league — conversations already underway with World Athletics, the sport's governing body.
For athletes like Thomas, the league carries symbolic weight beyond economics. "When a young girl watches me race, I want them to see a sport where women are treated with respect and with the economics that we've always deserved," she said. "There's a narrative growing up that you can't run professional track and field, there's nothing in it. I like that we're rewriting that." As Athlos plants roots in London and New York, it's rewriting not just the economics of women's athletics — it's redefining what female-centered professional sport can look like.