Long way from IAU organzing the first 5km World Trophy Final to the 50km event gaining entry into the World Athletics Record Books.
The first IAU 50 km World Championship took place on December 4th 2015 in Doha, Qatar. It was the first time the IAU organised an official 50K World Championship. This included men's and women's races with both individual and team competition.
However, the development of the 50 km event started way back in 2005. It was the year when the IAU introduced the first IAU 50 km Trophy. It was the final race after a series of qualifying rounds. Runners could gain qualification to run in the final through performances on one of the nine qualifying races around the world. The first final took place on October 16th in Palermo, Italy.
The winners of the men's and women's first 50K trophy were decided by the best aggregate time of their World Trophy race plus their best time from their qualifying round. Then the race moved away from aggregate scoring, with the World Trophy race becoming a straight final from the second edition in 2006 in Winschoten, Netherlands, and it continued in this format up to 2014. The 2008 and 2013 editions were cancelled due to the number of world championships the IAU had already organized that year.
The first trophy winners were Heather Foundling-Hawker (GBR) in women race and Sandor Barcza (FRA) for men race. The first winner of the IAU 50 km World Championship in 2015 were Camille Herron (USA), women race and Tony Migliozzi (USA), men race. It was the first time when team competition were introduced as well. Croatia won women team gold medal and Kenia men team gold.
The 50 km Trophy finals and 50 km World Championships were hosted in 6 different countries on 11 different occasions. Most of them took place in Europe and the Middle East.
It has been a long journey from that first World Trophy Final in 2005 to 2022 when the 50km was officially recognized for records by the World Athletics. We are extremely excited by this honour. 50km was always a launching pad for marathon runners who wanted to move into ultrarunning. We, on the IAU, will continue to promote the event through our World Championships and give runners an avenue to enter the ultra world.
Nadeem Khan, IAU President
In 2019 IAU took a further step forward and for the first time organized a IAU 50 km Continental Championships and it was also the first time IAU major event was organized in Africa.
We will continue further development of the IAU 50 km World and Continental Championships. This is a great platform for marathon runners to move to ultradistances and it is a great bridge to other IAU events such 100 km Championships and others.
The latest stage in the development of 50 km competition took place at the end of 2021 when the World Athletics agreed to give the top 50 km performances World Record status. These performances will rank alongside the 100Km World records which have been recognized by World Athletics for a number of years This is a great achievement and big step to further promotion of 50 km that started already in 2005.
The current women world record of 2:59:54 was set in April 2021 by Desiree Linden from USA and for the men the world record of 2:42:07 was set in May 2021 by Negasa, Ketema Bekele from Ethiopia. These were outstanding performances in 2021 to set the inaugural 50K World Records to be recognized by World Athletics
The most decorated nations are listed below.
Women
|
Place |
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
|
1 |
GBR |
6 |
5 |
3 |
|
2 |
USA |
3 |
1 |
0 |
|
3 |
ITA |
1 |
2 |
2 |
|
4 |
KEN |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
5 |
AUS |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
5 |
CRO |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
5 |
GER |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
8 |
CAN |
0 |
0 |
2 |
|
9 |
AUT |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
9 |
ESP |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
9 |
NED |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
9 |
RSA |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Men
|
Place |
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
|
1 |
USA |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|
2 |
ZIM |
2 |
1 |
1 |
|
3 |
GBR |
1 |
4 |
3 |
|
4 |
RSA |
1 |
2 |
0 |
|
5 |
KEN |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
6 |
BEL |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
7 |
BLR |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
7 |
ESP |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
7 |
FRA |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
10 |
RUS |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
11 |
AUT |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
11 |
JAP |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
11 |
NED |
0 |
0 |
1 |
IAU Executive Council
January 28th, 2022
