Backyard Ultra World Team Championships 2026: Team UK

The 2026 Backyard Ultra World Team Championships: Team UK’s squad, Sarah Perry, start time and how to watch.

Todd Cole

17/10/2026

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Team UK starts the 2026 Backyard Ultra World Team Championships at 1pm on Saturday 17 October in Sherwood Pines Forest, Nottinghamshire, led by the women’s world record holder, Sarah Perry. At the same moment, roughly 1,110 runners from 74 countries start on courses in their own nations, and every loop they finish counts toward their country’s total.

The format is simple and brutal. Each loop is 6.7 km (4.167 miles), and you have an hour to finish it. A new loop starts on the hour, every hour. Miss the cut-off, or fail to be in the start pen when the whistle goes, and you’re out. There’s no set finish: the 2024 team championship ran for more than four days.

Team UK at a glance

Start: Saturday 17 October 2026, 1pm BST (12:00 UTC), simultaneous worldwide
Course: Sherwood Pines Forest, Kings Clipstone, Nottinghamshire, hosted by Rasselbock Running
Format: 6.7 km per loop, one loop an hour, last runner standing wins the course
Scoring: every loop by the 15 UK runners is added to the national total
Team leader: Sarah Perry, women’s world record of 95 loops (Big’s Backyard Ultra 2025)
Defending champions: Belgium, 1,147 loops in 2024 (Australia 971, USA 969)
World record: Phil Gore (Australia), 119 loops, about 798 km (June 2025)

Sarah Perry leads the strongest UK team yet

Perry ran 95 loops at Big’s Backyard Ultra in Tennessee in October 2025, about 637 km, beating Megan Eckert’s women’s world record of 87 and Matthew Blackburn’s British best of 87. A year earlier she won the UK team race in Thetford Forest with 59 loops, one more than Alex Sweet.

Behind her is the deepest squad the UK has sent. Eight of the 15 have run 60 loops or more, according to Running Westward Ho, when the best result at the 2024 UK race was 59. Blackburn, the former British record holder and 2022 UK winner, is back, and so is Sweet, now the Scottish champion.

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The Team UK roster

Four places went to Silver Ticket winners (victories at designated UK backyard races) and 11 to the best at-large results. The numbers are the qualifying results on the official selection table, not necessarily lifetime bests.

Runner	Qualifying result (loops)
Sarah Perry	95
Matthew Blackburn	87
Dave Phillips	65
Sam Mayhew	64
Iain Bethune	64
Jay Stapley	61
Tal Taran	61
George Jones	60
Rob Mallett	59
Andrew Miles (Silver Ticket)	58
James Luxton	58
Andy Wilson	57
Phil Marshall (Silver Ticket)	46
Alex Sweet (Silver Ticket)	44
Alun Rose (Silver Ticket)	25

Source: Big’s Backyard Ultra official selection table, 17 October 2026. Silver Ticket figures are the winning result at the ticket race. Reserves: Kieron Day, Charlie Steward, Wayne Smith, Luke Slater, George Rickwood, Lizzie Gatherer.

One listing, Yardlore, has Kieron Day in the final place and Andy Wilson as first reserve. Both have 57 loops. The official table and Running Westward Ho have Wilson in.

National flags hung along a metal barrier fence in front of white race tents, portable toilets and a green-and-white striped marquee — Every nation flies its flag: the team championships run on courses in more than 70 countries at once.

The favourites: Belgium, Australia, USA

Belgium: defending champions. In 2024 they won with 1,147 loops, when Merijn Geerts, Ivo Steyaert and Frank Gielen all reached 110 together.
Australia: second in 2024 and racing at home in Kembla Grange, New South Wales, but without world record holder Phil Gore, who is recovering from leg surgery.
USA: third in 2024, two loops behind Australia. Team USA races on Laz Lake’s original course in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, led by Harvey Lewis and Jon Noll (111 loops each at Big’s 2025).

Depth decides team titles. Every loop counts, so avoiding early drops matters as much as how long the stars last.

Could a world record fall?

The overall record is Phil Gore’s 119 loops, set at Dead Cow Gully in Queensland in June 2025. It’s an individual mark, separate from the team scoring: on each course the winner is the last runner to complete a loop alone, so a new record needs two runners on the same course to reach 119. Perry’s 95 is the women’s record. Here’s the full backyard ultra world record history.

Ultra runners strung out along a gravel trail through green fields and forest — In a backyard ultra, every runner starts a new 6.7 km loop on the hour, every hour, until only one is left.

How to watch and follow

Official world livestream: the Backyard Ultra Channel on YouTube, from 12:45pm BST.
Team UK: Rasselbock Running, with live results at rasselbock.co.uk/live-result. Spectators are welcome at Sherwood Pines, with a big screen showing the UK and world races.
All countries: bigsbackyardultra.com.
Team Australia: our live updates, posted each Australian morning.

A day is 24 loops (100 miles), so anyone still running at 1pm on Sunday has done 24, and 48 by 1pm Monday. Matching the UK’s 2024 best of 59 takes until around midnight on Monday night.