MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Media OutReach Newswire - 20 July 2026 ? Russia's leading track and field athletes will gather at the Russian National Athletics Championships this month seeking national titles, personal bests and records at the country's premier athletics event of the year.

The Championships will take place from 23 to 26 July in Yekaterinburg, a major city in Russia's Ural region, bringing together around 700 athletes from over 50 regions at the Kalininets sports complex.

Listed in the World Athletics calendar as a National Senior Outdoor Championships event, the competition will see 44 sets of medals awarded over four days across 23 disciplines.

As the central event of the Russian athletics season, the Championships will bring together established champions, national record-holders and rising young athletes. The competition will help identify the country's strongest athletes across the full range of track and field disciplines, while providing an important benchmark for performances that may be compared with the highest international standards.

"Our priority is to provide fair, transparent and professionally organised conditions for athletes to perform at their best. Russia has the facilities and experience to stage major athletics competitions, and Yekaterinburg is well prepared to host an event of this scale," said Petr Fradkov, Chairman of the Russian Athletics Federation. "As the world of sports is gradually opening up to Russia, our top athletes are looking forward to returning to international athletics events to once again prove their worth on the global stage."

Russian competitions have produced a series of national records and internationally competitive results in recent seasons. Pole vaulter Polina Knoroz is one of the standout examples this year: her 4.87m clearance in Moscow in June was entered into World Athletics' official statistics as the leading outdoor women's pole vault mark of the season at the time, before she improved to 4.91m in Cheboksary to move to the top of the 2026 world season list. In the high jump among men, the leader of the season is Danil Lysenko, who showed the best result of the year at the tournament in Chelyabinsk - 2.33. Reyhan Kagramanova leads the world ranking in the 10,000m race walk with a result of 42:38.03, which she showed in June at the Russian Cup in Cheboksary.

The Championships will be conducted in accordance with international technical standards, using certified equipment and official results procedures. Presidents of several athletics federations from Latin America, Africa and Asia are scheduled to attend the Champiоnship.

The programme features the 100m, 200m and 400m sprints, the 800m and 1500m middle-distance events, the 5000m and 10,000m long-distance events, the 110m hurdles, 400m hurdles and 3000m steeplechase, as well as the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.

The field events will include high jump, pole vault, long jump and triple jump, alongside shot put, discus, hammer and javelin. The Championships will also feature the 10,000m race walk, the decathlon for men and the heptathlon for women.