Nearly 1,000 of the world’s top masters mountain runners are descending on the historic spa town of Janské Lázně this weekend. Representing 38 nations, these athletes will take to the rugged trails of the Krkonoše Mountains from June 26 to 28 for the World Masters Mountain Running Championships. Racing under the joint banner of the World Mountain Running Association and World Masters Athletics, they are set to prove that competitive drive on the world stage doesn’t fade with age.

The grueling courses are set across the challenging slopes of Černá hora, with Janské Lázně serving as the central hub for the weekend’s events. It is an environment that perfectly mirrors the true character of masters mountain running: relentless climbs, unforgiving mountain terrain, deep national team rivalries, and a tight-knit global community that has sustained and championed this discipline for over two decades.

The final start lists confirm the size of the event. Friday’s Uphill race has 611 entries, Saturday’s Long Distance race has 544, and Sunday’s Up & Down race has 609. Across the weekend, 970 individual athletes are registered, with many taking on more than one race.

This three-race format has now become a strong part of the World Masters Mountain Running Championships. After being used in Canfranc (Spain) in 2024 and again in Meduno (Italy) in 2025, the combination of Uphill, Long Distance and Up & Down racing has proved to be a great success, giving athletes different ways to compete and allowing the championships to show the full range of mountain running.

The programme opens on Friday with the Uphill race, covering 7.79km with 851m of climbing. On Saturday, the Long Distance race takes athletes over 22.17km with 1332m of elevation gain. The weekend closes on Sunday with the Up & Down race, 8.95km with 594m of climb, where descending speed will matter as much as climbing strength.

All three races are centred around the town core to simplify transfers, support team logistics, and maximise the championship atmosphere for athletes and supporters.

• Uphill: approx. 8 km with ~850 m of climbing, Friday 26 June 2026, 13:00. A sharp ascent from the colonnade area up to Černá hora, designed for pure vertical specialists.
• Long Distance: approx. 2 km with ~1,330 m of ascent, Saturday 27 June 2026, 08:30. A classic mountain half-marathon profile on varied terrain, starting and finishing by the town colonnade.

For the masters community, this championship has become one of the most important gatherings of the year. Since the first edition in 2001, the event has grown into a meeting point for athletes who continue to train, travel and compete with the same ambition as ever.

Canfranc 2024 showed the strength of the championships in the Spanish Pyrenees, last year’s edition in Italy continued that momentum, and now Janské Lázně adds another chapter.

The start lists show a field with depth across the age categories, rather than one single race built around a handful of names. There are athletes with senior international mountain-running experience, runners with long records in fell, trail and ultra-distance racing, and many masters specialists who know exactly how to race championship courses.

Great Britain’s Andrew Douglas stands out as one of the strongest names on the start lists. Entered in the Men 35 category for both the Uphill and Up & Down races in Janské Lázně, he arrives with strong recent credentials, including victory in the Classic race at the 2024 World Masters Mountain Running Championships in Canfranc and a second-place finish at the WMRA Mountain Running World Cup opener in São Brás, Portugal, this April.

He is joined in a deep men’s field by athletes such as Calder Valley Fell Runners’ Karl Gray of Great Britain and Buzz Burrell of the United States, a recognised figure in American trail and ultrarunning culture and closely associated with the development of the Fastest Known Time movement. The long-distance race also shows the international reach of the championships, with athletes from Argentina, Uruguay, Lithuania, Slovakia, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Germany and the host nation Czechia among those entered.

The women’s fields bring the same breadth. Belgium’s Charlotte Cotton is one of the standout names, a multiple world and European masters champion who has also represented Belgium at senior World and European mountain-running level. She is joined on the start lists by France’s Armelle Caillet, Sweden’s Tove Hjertonsson, Great Britain’s Fiona Martin, Shona Stone and Dehra-Jane Tomb, and Ireland’s Sinead Egan and Paula Donnellan Walsh. Around them is a large and varied field of Czech, Slovak, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Polish and other international athletes, underlining that the championship weekend is not built around only a few favourites.

Across the categories, the racing will be shaped by athletes with very different backgrounds: some with international experience, some with long club-running careers, and others who have made masters competition a central part of their sporting life. That mix is exactly what gives the World Masters Mountain Running Championships their character.

The weekend also comes at a busy moment for the World Mountain Running Association. In recent days, the WMRA World Cup was racing at Broken Arrow in the United States, one of the biggest prize-purse events in the sport, while the International U18 Mountain Running Cup brought young athletes together in Gagliano del Capo, Italy. Now the focus turns to the masters in Czechia, in a championship that also reflects the strong role of World Masters Athletics in supporting competition, participation and international standards for athletes across age groups.

Together, those three events say a lot about where mountain running is going: young athletes, elite athletes and masters athletes all sharing the same sport, each with their own role in its future.

For the WMRA, that is also part of the bigger responsibility. The aim is not only to grow mountain running, but to grow it well: with more people discovering the mountains, more countries involved, and a strong respect for the environments and communities that make these races possible.

This weekend in Janské Lázně, medals will be decided across every age category. But the championship will also celebrate something wider: the simple fact that mountain running does not end at a certain age.

In the masters field, age is a category. It is not a limit.

EVENT MANUAL