By Andy Marston, Sports Pundit
Technogym and World Athletics have announced RUN X, a first-of-its-kind global treadmill championship designed to unite runners from around the world through Technogym’s connected ecosystem.
The championship will allow millions of amateur and professional runners to compete virtually across more than 50,000 fitness centres in 120 countries, leveraging Technogym’s connected treadmill network.
The 5km race format will feature live leaderboards, regional qualifiers, and a global final at the end of 2026, with a US$100,000 prize pool and wildcards to World Athletics Series events.
Fitness centres can begin affiliating in Q1 2026, with runner registration opening in Q2 and the first championship taking place in Q4.
The initiative was unveiled in Milan by Technogym CEO Nerio Alessandri, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, and world champion Jimmy Gressier, signalling the growing crossover between fitness tech and elite sport.
Why It Matters:
RUN X is another sign that sport is moving toward hybrid competition formats where physical participation meets digital infrastructure.
We’ve already seen this model work: Zwift turned indoor cycling into a global racing ecosystem, Supertri E blended real-world performance with virtual overlays, and TGL is doing something similar for golf via (partially) screen-based competition. Technogym and World Athletics are now betting the same formula can unlock mass-participation running.
This move is a recognition of a gap that World Athletics previously missed. Parkrun became one of the largest mass-participation ecosystems on earth, and athletics as a governing body captured very little of that energy or data. RUN X is a way to re-enter that space in a format built for the modern age and gives them a chance to
turn millions of “active fans” (pun intended) into participants whose performance, preferences, and behaviours are trackable for the first time.
Essentially, participation becomes data, data becomes insight, and insight becomes both performance value and commercial value. A digitally connected running championship can become a funnel, feedback loop, and fan database all at once.
Lest we forget Technogym in all of this, too. While there may be slight differences in product features, treadmills have largely looked and behaved roughly the same. RUN X gives Technogym a meaningful point of differentiation in so much as that owning one suddenly lets you access a sanctioned world championship. That’s a powerful incentive for gyms, hotels, and training centres when choosing between hardware brands.
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