In this update:

• Homepage Highlights

• Trials Tab Enhancements

• Live Page Updates

• NAL Finishes with a Flourish

There’s still time in the season to try out our recent improvements at your upcoming competitions, but you’ll have to read on first!

Homepage Highlights

In some competitions, all the focus is on one or two events, and we now have a way to showcase them on the competition homepage.

With a couple of clicks, you can set up a rotating carousel of highlighted events for anyone viewing your competition, showing the top three results.

For events with more than one heat, you’ll be offered the option to select the unit you want to highlight.

Trials Tab Enhancements

All field events on OpenTrack have had a trials tab for some time, but up until now it could just be a fairly dry list of what happened in the event, in chronological order.

As lovers of field events, we’ve decided to do something about it, and have made big improvements to make following along as easy as possible. There’s colour emphasis for valid and invalid attempts, the familiar OpenTrack club flags are now present, and important trials now have Highlights shown next to them to help you follow the flow of competition.

If you’re only following one athlete, you can now pin them to see only their results, including live trials as they come in.

Highlights Only mode is also super helpful, just giving you what matters, where the whole picture might otherwise be overwhelming.

Live Page Updates

As part of our continuing improvements to OpenTrack, we’ve now made sure that our event listing and timetable pages update in the background as competitions progress, so there’s no longer a need to refresh - your Ctrl + R keys can breathe a sigh of relief!

NAL Finishes with a Flourish

In competitions news, Saturday August 22nd saw the final day of the regular season in the National Athletics League, as we near the end of our fifth year of partnering with the UK’s top league.

Thames Valley Harriers regained their Premiership title from 2025 winners Harrow, despite losing out on the day itself, while teams across the four Championship matches fought for places in the Promotion Match, taking place on September 12th.

The best performances of the round came in the Premiership match, with Jake Minshull’s 49.97 in the opening race, the men’s A 400 metre hurdles, the best-scoring on the day, equal to 1131 World Athletics points.

Equally impressive performances came in the field, with UK leaders Jake Norris (75.24) and Charlotte Payne (71.82) dominating their respective fields in the men’s and women’s hammer, while in the women’s pole vault, guest (and New Zealand international) Olivia McTaggart won by 30 centimetres.

There’s plenty more to come before the summer season wraps up, so keep your eye on OpenTrack as we go through the next few weeks, with the Monument Mile Classic and British Masters Outdoor Championships just a couple of the major competitions around the corner!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• Saraboyukov Doubles Up

• New Heights in Estonia

• Cardiff Sprints Success

• Competition Homepage Enhancements

It’s European Championships week, and we’re thrilled to have some of Europe’s best athletes competing just up the road from us as we continue supporting athletics across the continent and beyond!

Saraboyukov Doubles Up

On July 26th, Bozhidar Saraboyukov set a new championship record of 8.48 (+1.8) in the men’s long jump at the Bulgarian National Championships to back up his national record of 8.49 (+1.3) from 12 days earlier.

Making the most of his national championships, Saraboyukov also cleared 2.15 to double up and win the national high jump title — the world #3 goes in the European Championships long jump final this evening!

New Heights in Estonia

Henri Apri has had an incredible breakthrough season so far, breaking the Estonian men’s U20 pole vault record on multiple occasions.

The Estonian National Championships provided Apri with the opportunity to deliver once again, and he did just that, breaking his own U20 national record, and surpassing clubmate (and national championships runner-up) Robert Kompus’ U23 national record!

After his national title win, Apri went on to take second place at the World U20 Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in yet another dual U20/U23 national record of 5.75!

Cardiff Sprints Success

This year’s combined Welsh U18 & Senior Championships incorporated the British trials for the European U18 Championships, and the nation’s best youngsters turned out in force.

Highlight of the meeting was Ethan Heggarty’s 20.51 (+2.0) for 200 metres, the second-fastest ever by a British U18, a World U18 lead, and a time that would have won bronze at the World U20s!

Competition Homepage Enhancements

We’re always looking to make OpenTrack better, and while there are plenty of behind-the-scenes improvements made in recent weeks, here are two updates you'll notice right away.

For competitions using medal tables and/or scoring tables, an at-a-glance summary is now available on the competition homepage, so you can see who’s on top without the need for extra clicks!

There’s much more to come from us over the coming months as we continue to support summer athletics until there’s a chill in the air and athletes start lacing up cross-country spikes, so keep your eyes peeled!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

This month we’ve completely rebuilt OpenTrack’s recording screens for both vertical and horizontal events, and we’re delighted to share the results with you.

In this update:

• Vertical Events

• Horizontal Events

• Stadium WiFi? No Problem

We’ve kept all of the elements that made the last iteration of our recording screens useful for officials, while streamlining interactions with the page and how we handle the data behind the scenes — a competition can now be done in half the clicks, and jumps and throws uploaded in half the time!

Vertical Events

Our new high jump and pole vault screen puts the four possible outcomes — O, X, −, R — front and centre. Tap one, and OpenTrack immediately advances to the next athlete jumping at the current height (while leaving you with the option to override, if needed). When everyone has had their go, a clear indicator tells you the round is complete.

Raising the bar is a single click, and OpenTrack auto-passes any athletes without a performance at the previous height — no manual intervention required.

The results table shows each athlete’s attempts at every height, colour-coded for easy navigation at a glance. Our revamped mobile view displays the same information in a compact format.

Horizontal Events

Our new horizontal recording screen uses a round-by-round layout, also with auto-advance to sensibly move to the next competitor after each entry. The distance field will accept results in any sensible format, and colours green or red instantly to give feedback on whether what’s been typed is valid.

Best results are shown in bold, with a live position column updated after every trial. If your competition uses a cut — dropping to the top eight athletes for the last 3 rounds, for example — OpenTrack handles the transition automatically, greying out eliminated competitors and reordering the list.

Noticed an incorrectly entered result in a previous round? Editing is trivial: select the athlete, tap the round, correct it, confirm.

Stadium WiFi? No Problem

We know that athletics venues are not always the most reliable environments for internet connectivity — portable hotspots, crowded stadium networks, and dead spots in the infield are all common occurrences.

In the past, a dropped internet connection could cause issues, but we’ve implemented a number of features to handle connectivity problems at every level.

The most visible change is the status bar, which appears at the bottom of the edit panel when needed, and gives instant feedback on the status of results, so you always know your data has reached the server.

If your device runs into issues, or goes fully offline, you’ll see a warning, and results will be queued up on your device for when connectivity returns, with a flag so you know which results are yet to go live.

As soon as the signal comes back, the queued data is sent immediately, without any intervention needed.

The new screens are live now for all OpenTrack competitions. If you’d like a walkthrough before your next meeting, or want to see them in action, drop us a line — we’re always happy to help.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

The month of May kept us busy with world-leading elite performances and supporting federations across multiple continents — here’s a breakdown of where the season has taken us over the last couple of weeks.

In this update:

• World Leads at the Cyprus International

• New Season, New Website for the NAL

• Around the World

• What’s New Under the Hood?

A world lead in the long jump, a 100m thriller decided by three-hundredths of a second, and a brand-new website full of stats for the NAL — the outdoor season is moving fast, but our team is moving faster.

World Leads at the Cyprus International

May 29th saw the fifth edition of the Cyprus International Athletics Meeting to take place on OpenTrack, and the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting delivered!

Far and away the best performances came in the men’s jumps, with Greek duo Miltiadis Tentoglou and Emmanouil Karalis making the short hop over the Mediterranean to compete.

The pair of World #2s were on fine form, with Tentoglou producing a world-leading 8.49 (-0.6) into a slight headwind in the final round of the men’s long jump to win by more than half a metre.

Karalis was also in a class of his own in the men’s pole vault, clearing 6.00 for his fifth time over 6 metres this season, while the women’s long jump also saw good jumping from Ukraine’s Iryna Budzynska, with a PB of 6.82 placing her just outside the top 10 in the world in 2026.

New Season, New Website for the NAL

The first round of the UK’s National Athletics League took place on May 23rd, and saw Thames Valley Harriers win the Premiership match as they look to reclaim the league title from 2025 winners Harrow.

More than 1,000 athletes took part across the five matches, with highlights at the Premiership match coming in the form of Charlie Husbands’ 2.21 in the men’s high jump, while Charlotte Payne continued her great season, throwing over 70m once again with 70.10 in the women’s hammer.

Ahead of the first match, we also launched nal.opentrack.run, a homepage for everything NAL, including detailed stats going back to the league’s first season on OpenTrack in 2022!

Around the World

Lisek At Home International

Also on both OpenTrack and the World Athletics Continental Tour was the Bronze-level meeting was the Lisek At Home International Pole Vault, as Polish pole vault legend Piotr Lisek hosted international colleagues in his hometown of Duszniki.

The five-time world medallist was beaten into second place on countback in a close-run competition that saw France’s Ethan Cormont win with a vault of 5.75.

Saudi Season Comes to a Close

Those outside of the northern hemisphere live their athletic lives on an altogether different schedule, and on 8-9 May the Saudi Arabian Athletics Federation concluded their second successful season using OpenTrack with their national championships.

Pick of the races was the men’s 100 metres final, with six athletes crossing the line under 10.25, led home by Omani international Ali Anwar Al-Balushi as the top three athletes were separated by just three-hundredths of a second.

What’s New Under the Hood?

We won’t bore you with everything we’ve improved this month, but we’ve made changes across the site, and hope you get the full benefit of our hard work in the coming months.

As a taste of what we’ve been up to, all of the following have been completed since mid-May:

• Complete redesign of our scoring pages: Scoring tables now offer a new, simplified display with interactive elements that allow an even deeper look at exactly where a team earns their points

• Improved competition check-in: Better functionality for easier management by meeting directors in the heat of competition

• Streamlined photofinish integration: Faster and more versatile file uploads and downloads

• Expanded competition APIs: For those with technical know-how to interact directly with OpenTrack

• Athlete anonymisation: New functionality for schools and youth competitions concerned about athlete privacy

Want to hear more about the features that matter to you, or got a novel competition idea you want to see realised? We’re always available for a chat, no matter how blue sky your thinking.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

We’d like to thank the staff at Dulwich College, who do a huge amount of work to put on this competition every year; they invited us in this year to help, and we guided them through the process from first declaration to last finisher.

With OpenTrack being a new experience for students and teachers alike, the goal was simple: moving away from pen, paper, and Excel sheets, to provide a professional experience for all in attendance, and streamline admin for busy teachers.

In this update:

• Managing the Championships

• New Feature: Athlete Anonymisation

• Scoring Revamp

With more than 600 athletes taking part in an action-packed day, schools from across the borough came to Croydon Sports Arena to fight it out for eight titles, across four year groups.

Managing the Championships

Schools athletics in England has a unique structure, with athletes progressing from local, to county, to national-level competitions through the summer term. For many kids and schools, their district or borough championships is their only chance of the year to take part in a proper athletics meeting, so it’s really important to give them a good experience.

The meetings are also organised by busy PE teachers who cover numerous sports, and are sometimes involved with just one athletics competition each year — the process needs to be as simple as possible.

Start Lists and Results

In managing a meeting of this size, at this level, the key to making things run smoothly is likely completely foreign to most organisers — no start lists!

A huge amount of work normally goes into preparing start lists for every heat in a competition, but for this competition each school delivered an athlete declaration ahead of the day, with just athlete names and bib numbers.

After each race, the track results - just bibs and times - were added directly into OpenTrack, with no worrying about lanes — athlete names, age groups and schools are looked up automatically from the competitor list!

Field events worked exactly the same, with teachers filling out our printable field cards at the event site, and bib numbers and results going straight into the computer after the conclusion of the event.

No More Selection Headaches

A key consideration, with the event being a borough championships, is that the top athletes in each event are selected to represent Southwark at the London Schools Championships in a few weeks time.

Previously, compiling selections meant working through competition results in Excel by hand, and then contacting schools and families after the competition. Our suite of competition download reports means that picking out the top placed athletes in each event is trivial, cutting down the time needed to put together the selections.

“Having been involved and having organised the Southwark Schools Championships for many years I was extremely impressed to see how smoothly everything seemed to run, with results being able to be looked up by all on the day as we went along.

For those who, like myself, who were officiating, it was great to be able to look at the results at the end of the day. It was wonderful to see the winning teams being able to be presented their trophies at the end of the competition - whilst they were still there!

I look forward to us being able to offer the same at the London Schools Championships in June.”

Marilyn Walker, London Schools’ Athletic Association

New Feature: Athlete Anonymisation

For many schools, student privacy is a non-negotiable priority. We’ve delivered a new feature that offers full control over public-facing data in start lists, results, and athlete listings.

Organisers can now choose from a variety of anonymisation options during setup, ensuring that while those in charge can see the data they need, our pages protect students’ identities automatically.

Scoring Revamp

Waiting around for final scores is often a pain, especially when you’re a teacher on a tight turnaround to get back to school! At the Southwark Champs, OpenTrack’s scoring enabled prizes to be awarded straight after the final relay for the first time in years, with our completely redesigned scoring pages taking centre stage.

Fully interactive and intuitive, our new scoring screen gives immediate access to scoring breakdowns by team and by event, illustrating just how close the contest is at every stage of the competition.

You’ll be seeing a lot more of these screens in the near future, especially as we look ahead to the first round of the 2026 National Athletics League in just over a week’s time!

We have plenty more schools competitions coming up, with the summer really starting to ramp up, so keep an eye out as we move into June and the sharp end of the schools season!

If you are (or you know) a school teacher wanting to put on an inter-house competition or an inter-school match, with streamlined administration and a great experience, please get in touch!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

For decades, the BMC has delivered top-tier races for the UK’s middle-distance runners to achieve top ranking performances, and we’ve been able to completely streamline the membership process, to make sure that more time can be spent focusing on what matters!

In this update:

• Automated Standards Checks

• Smart Membership Categories and Pricing

• Sharing the Good News

We’ve enhanced OpenTrack’s long-standing membership offering with BMC-specific functionality to offer our simplest solution yet for managing memberships - with many BMC races exclusive to members, and members always receiving priority entry, there’s never been a better time to join!

Automated Standards Checks

The standout feature of this new development is how we handle the BMC’s tiered qualifying standards. Previously, verifying an athlete’s eligibility for membership required manual checks, but OpenTrack now does the heavy lifting automatically, fetching data from a range of sources using our tried and tested integrations.

When an athlete logs in to join or renew, they can instantly fetch their best performances of the last two calendar years directly from the Power of 10, World Athletics, and Tilastopaja, getting instant feedback on their membership eligibility!

Smart Membership Categories and Pricing

The BMC membership standards aren’t one-size-fits-all, and it’s possible for athletes to be eligible for multiple categories at the same time.

OpenTrack seamlessly handles this complexity, automatically offering athletes to join or renew their membership at the highest level of membership they’re eligible for.

Sharing the Good News

A key perk of BMC membership is receiving BMC News magazine twice a year, so making sure it gets sent to the right place is vital!

When joining or renewing, athletes are prompted to confirm or update their current postal address, ensuring clean, up-to-date data when it comes time to mail things out.

Additionally, ensuring each athlete is listed in the correct region of the UK used to require manual intervention on the previous membership platform. Now, using the postcodes provided, OpenTrack automatically assigns each athlete to their respective region, making it easy to send out targeted regional communications without any manual data sorting.

If you’re a middle-distance runner and you’ve not yet renewed, head over to bmc.opentrack.run to get your BMC membership sorted for 2026!

Not a middle-distance runner, but looking for a membership platform to handle your own complex requirements? You know where to find us!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

We’re thrilled to share our latest update as we extend the use of our Competition Management System across Europe and beyond, making life simpler for national federations, clubs, and athletics fans.

In this update:

• Speed in Scotland

• UK Combined Events Championships

• Fantastic Field

• More Progress on Entries

Poland’s World Indoors may have meant a quiet end to the month of March, but prior to that there was top-tier athletics to be had across Europe.

Speed in Scotland

The best performances of the past month came during the Scottish Athletics Championships on February 28th and March 1st, as the M11 Track Club travelled to Glasgow to compete across a range of events alongside the UK Combined Events Championships.

Unsurprisingly given the attendees, the middle distance races featured the strongest performances, with Georgia Hunter-Bell delivering an indoor best of 1:57.80 in the 800 metres before going on to win the World Indoors title over 1500 metres three weeks later.

In the men’s 800 metres, Ethan Hussey led a close field home in one of the strongest domestic races so far in 2026. All five finishers snuck under 1:48.50, with Matthew McKenna and Joshua Mungin going #1 and #2 on the UK U20 all-time list indoors.

In the 1500 metre races, Jack Higgins’ 3:35.60 led three men under 3:38, while Revee Walcott-Nolan beat an international field in 4:01.50.

Finally, the last of the invitational races saw Keely Hodgkinson beat her outdoor personal best over 400 metres, her 51.49 the second-fastest of any British woman this year.

UK Combined Events Championships

In the combined events in Glasgow, Thea Brown and Sammy Ball both set PBs and domestic leading performances in winning their UK titles.

Brown’s 4320 point total included 1070 scored in her first event of the weekend, thanks to a UK top 5 performance of 8.26 in the 60 metre hurdles.

Reading’s Ball was remarkably consistent on his way to a total of 5849 points, with fewer than 120 points between his best-scoring 2:38.32 (892 points) in the 1000 metres, and his worst-scoring 14.83 (779 points) in the shot.

Fantastic Field

At the Bulgarian Indoor Championships, Hristo Iliev set a European U23 record for the third time this season in the men’s 60 metres final, lowering the mark and his lifetime best to 6.51.

The next day, also in Sofia, Bozhidar Saraboyukov took just one jump to win the men’s long jump, sealing victory and the national title with a leap of 8.12 in advance of his bronze medal at World Indoors later in the month.

In the throws, Cyprus’ Winter Throws Championships saw Iosif Kesidis take full advantage of the early season competition opportunity to break the Cypriot senior and U23 records by exactly two metres in the hammer, throwing 77.32.

Back in the UK and also in the hammer throw, British international Charlotte Payne secured an auto-qualifying mark for this summer’s European Championships, throwing 71.72 to secure her ticket to Birmingham.

More Progress on Entries

We’re thrilled to have added extra ways to find athletes when starting an entry, as we continue to make getting the right athletes into the right competitions even easier.

At the athlete selection stage of the entry journey you now have a shortcut to athletes you are managing on OpenTrack — useful for parents entering their children — as well as anyone you have entered into a competition recently, saving time for coaches, siblings, and spouses alike!

Athletics may have entered its post-indoor, pre-summer lull, but there’s no such rest for us, with plenty more developments on the way as we enter April — keep an eye out!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• Balkan Indoor Championships

• Magnificent Masters

• Action Elsewhere

• Making OpenTrack Better For You

This season’s cross country racing may soon be winding down, but indoor athletics is more than making up for it, with plenty of recent World Athletics Calendar meetings across Europe on OpenTrack.

Balkan Indoor Championships

Last Saturday, Serbia hosted the Balkan Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade for the second year running, with Turkey’s four golds, four silvers, and six bronzes topping a medal table that saw 15 countries secure at least one piece of silverware.

One of the best contests of the weekend saw two of the world’s top five face off in the men’s long jump, as world #5 Bozhidar Saraboyukov took down world #3 and double Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou.

Bulgaria’s Saraboyukov jumped 8.42, just three centimetres shy of his recent national record of 8.45, to beat Tentoglou of Greece, in a series that saw him go 8.23 or further on all five of his valid attempts.

In the men’s 60 metres, fellow Bulgarian Hristo Iliev broke the European U23 and Bulgarian senior records with a time of 6.53, after equalling the existing record of 6.54 a week prior in Belgrade.

Magnificent Masters

This weekend also played host to the British Masters Indoor Championships, with more than 650 athletes heading to London’s Lee Valley across two days of competition.

In the 60 metres, former GB senior international Christine Harrison Bloomfield broke her British W55 record set in January by a tenth of a second, her 8.04 very close to the long-standing European and world record of 8.01.

Over barriers, Jane Horder remains close to her record of 9.98 in the 60 metre hurdles, clocking 10.34 for W65 silver less than a year away from moving into the W70 category, where the European and world record over the same specification hurdles is 11.37.

Action Elsewhere

Recent weeks have seen an incredible number of national indoor championships, as well as the Bronze-level World Athletics Indoor Tour Memorial Josip Gasparac, the Silver-level Tallinn Combined Events, and the Scottish Athletics EAP International.

Now in its fourth year on OpenTrack, the yearly three-way match between Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia saw incredible jumping from Ivana Španović, whose recent focus on the triple jump seems to be paying off.

A distance of 14.41 for the Serbian athlete was a new national record, a European lead in 2026, and only four centimetres away from the best European performance in 2025, 14.45 by Germany’s Caroline Joyeux.

Making OpenTrack Better For You

On the development side of things, January saw a complete overhaul of our individual entries process, making life easier for the tens of thousands of athletes using OpenTrack to enter competitions each month.

On the smaller side, but no less important, we’ve also redone our main user menu, making life easier for parents managing their children, or busy athletes juggling half a dozen entries at once!

There’s plenty left in this indoor season, and OpenTrack is the place to be — we’d be wrong not to suggest keeping an eye on Glasgow this weekend, with the UK Combined Events Championships across both days, and some fast invitational races on Sunday!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

Sunday saw our fourth-busiest day ever, and the busiest winter day by far, as more than 22,000 users visited nearly 450,000 pages across OpenTrack.

In this update:

• Starting Out in Scotland

• Quick Fire Quality

• OpenTrack Improvements

It’s early season, so what better time for an athlete to plant themselves atop the 2026 rankings? Plenty of athletes have done that on OpenTrack over the past two weekends, and below we take a look at some of the highlights.

Starting Out in Scotland

We’re delighted to be expanding our work with Scottish Athletics this year to help them deliver the best competition experience for athletes across the country, and they kicked off their season with a huge National Indoor Open, nearly 800 competitors taking to Glasgow’s Emirates Arena on Sunday 11th January.

European U23 semi-finalist and 2025 UK indoor 200m champion Alyson Bell delivered a strong 23.47 season opener over one lap, also recording 7.37 for 60 metres.

Best on the field was Giffnock North’s Nikki Manson. Better known for her high jumping, representing Scotland in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, she set a 6.38 PB, just 10 centimetres shy of the qualification mark for this year’s home Commonwealths.

A week earlier in Glasgow, Tom Keen returned to the Glasgow AA Indoor Milers Meet after finishing a close second behind Jake Wightman last year, taking the win over 3000 metres in the second-fastest time of his career — 7:46.07 is also a world lead at this early stage of the season!

Quick Fire Quality

Norway - Fana Pole Vault Gala

Sweden’s William Asker set a PB of 5.60 and currently sits at world #2, while Hanga Klekner of Hungary is joint fourth in the world this year after she and Norwegian (and Fana athlete) Kitty Friele Faye both cleared 4.40, in Fana, Bergen.

United Kingdom - Surrey XC Championships

Jack Kavanagh continued a strong run of form to win the senior men’s race by over 90 seconds, after a 2025 season that saw him break the 8- and 14-minute barriers for 3000 and 5000 metres respectively.

Moldova - Concursul Republican Sub Egida FAM

Alexandr Mazur, World U20 fourth-placer, opened up his season with 19.19 to go sixth in the world this year.

OpenTrack Improvements

As ever, we’re hard at work behind the scenes, with last week seeing some major system upgrades that will ensure a smooth 2026 for everyone.

It’s hard to measure the impact of a competition, but one thing we can put a number on is eyeballs, and we’re making it easier than ever to know just how many people are engaging with your competitions on OpenTrack.

We’ve added stats to the competition management homepage — you can’t miss them. As an example, try the stats from last year’s European Masters Championships on for size!

This is just the start of an incredible indoor season, with national championships almost every weekend until the end of March - keep your eyes peeled for some stellar performances!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

As the year draws to a close, enjoy a rundown of everything that made 2025 special from an OpenTrack point of view!

In this update:

• OpenTrack top performances

• Eyes on the athletics

• OpenTrack’s best bits

We hope that you have a restful festive break, and enjoy reading through the best that 2025 had to offer on OpenTrack — you’ll hear plenty more from us in the new year!

OpenTrack top performances

2025 saw the best performances on OpenTrack delivered by athletes from 20 nations in competitions across seven different countries, with major marks surpassed for the first time, numerous world top 50 performances, and plenty of repeat visitors to the top of the standings.

Track

Serbian meetings once again dominated the shortest of the sprints, with the Continental Tour Bronze Serbia Athletics Meeting producing the first-ever woman to go sub-11 for the 100 metres on OpenTrack, Jamaica’s Ashanti Moore (10.94, +0.7).

A new personal best of 3:33.86 for 1500 metres at the Sankthanshaugen 5000 was enough to put Canadian Max Davies into the world top 100 this year, while Tsige Teshome’s 4:09.06 to top the women’s lists was a split time on the way to her 4:26.79 mile at the Monument Mile Classic.

Jess Bailey’s early season mark at the University of Birmingham was the third-fastest run of all-time by a British U20 over 5000 metres, 15:07.19 placing her behind only Innes Fitzgerald and Zola Budd.

A league record over 400 metre hurdles for World Championships semi-finalist Tyri Donovan (48.46) was the pick of plenty of performances from the UK’s National Athletics League, as our collaboration enters its fifth year in 2026.

Field

Consistency at the top was the theme of the field events, with six of 16 places occupied by the same athletes as last year, including Alexandra Emilianov (60.84) and Kristjan Čeh (67.09) both retaining top spot in the women’s and men’s discus.

Charlotte Payne went beyond the 70m mark just once this season, and it was this performance, 70.03 at the final National Athletics League of the season, that topped the OpenTrack lists for the year placing her just outside the world top 50.

Miltiadis Tentoglou returned to the Continental Tour Bronze Cyprus International Athletics Meeting and once again beat the field, extending last year’s winning distance by two centimetres for 8.27 (+0.1).

Eyes on the athletics

Most Viewed Competitions — Home

It should come as no surprise that the most viewed domestic competitions of the year were the largest, and with the Night of the 10,000m PBs on hiatus, it was three championships that led the way.

Most viewed, by some way, was the Welsh Senior & U17 Championships. Incorporating the British trials for the European U23 Championships, 470,000 pageviews was more than double the 2024 total of 215,000.

Equally significant growth was had by the British Masters Outdoor Championships (323,000 up from 243,000), and the Welsh U13, U15 & U20 Championships, (270,000 up from 158,000).

Most Viewed Competitions — Away

We’re incredibly proud of our work in 2025, and the culmination of that was the European Masters Athletics Championships. With nearly five million pageviews across ten days of competition, it’s by far the most important competition we’ve supported, but more on that shortly.

With an equally impressive 489,000 pageviews, North Macedonia played host to the European Youth Olympic Festival, 27 countries making it onto the medal table across six days of competition.

OpenTrack’s best bits

As mentioned before, it’s hard to talk about 2025 for OpenTrack without talking about the European Masters Athletics Championships.

OpenTrack was involved from start to finish, providing competition support on site, delivering new features and functionality at pace, including live results screens and interactive medal table and timetables, and helping the local organising committee deliver a championships to remember!

For a proper look back, see our Substack from the Championships, covering everything from first start to final finish.

It wasn’t just the European Masters on OpenTrack in 2025 however, with a full season of collaboration with Saudi Athletics under our belts, and the International Island Games returning after its 2023 edition, for Orkney 2025.

We’re still adding to the host of World Athletics Indoor, Continental, and Cross Country tour meetings using OpenTrack to deliver for their athletes and fans, as well as national federations, and we’re sure we’ll be reporting back after delivering even more top-tier athletics next year.

We’re soon to be back from our Christmas break, and are getting ready for a busy season of indoor athletics ahead — we have much to bring you over the course of 2026, and can’t wait to share it with you in the new year!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

Our offices will be closed from 20th December, re-opening on Monday January 5th. During this time we will respond to urgent issues only - please be sure to use our support email address and not to email individuals, who may not see your messages.

In this update:

• Sandy Saudi Arabian XC Championships

• Competitive Cardiff Cross Challenge

• British and Irish Masters Cross Country International

• LUCA Open the Indoor Season

No two cross country courses are the same, and neither are any two cross country competitions, but we’re delighted that OpenTrack continues to deliver for organisers as they look to improve competitions for their athletes.

Sandy Saudi Arabian XC Championships

Held over two days on November 7th and 8th in Al Ahsa National Park, the Saudi National Cross Country Championships saw hundreds enjoy a tough course that had seen design input from Rio Olympian Charlie Grice and Mo Farah’s former coach Barry Fudge, who are both working to help develop endurance running in the country.

While those of us at OpenTrack HQ (and most Brits, for that matter) are used to cross country on mud, sand is much tougher — it isn’t just challenging to run on, it’s hard to breathe too!

To keep the dry dust under control, the organisers started by dumping a couple of trucks of water on the course, but by the time it came to run the senior races, the warm weather had boiled off the water and the course was quite dusty!

Competitive Cardiff Cross Challenge

The Cardiff Cross Challenge, like all Welsh Athletics competitions, lives on OpenTrack, and this year’s event on November 8th retained its Gold status on the World Cross Country Tour.

It was an international sweep of the podiums in both the men’s and women’s races, with a Kenyan lockout led by Mathew Kipsang in the men’s race, while 17-year-old Cynthia Chepkirui took the women’s race, with 2023 winner Megan Keith just off the podium in fourth.

Also at the event were the men’s and women’s trial races for the European Cross Country Championships mixed relay, and while both were hotly contested, the men’s was especially tight, with top five athletes covered by a single second.

British and Irish Masters Cross Country International

As the destination event for British and Irish cross country runners of a certain age, the 2025 edition of the BIMCCI brought hundreds of top masters athletes to Roundhay Park, Leeds on November 15th.

With team scoring as the focal point of the event, as Ireland and the four home nations faced off over the course of four races, OpenTrack’s chip timing integration came to the fore, working with JC Race Timing on the ground to deliver results and scoring updates every minute.

With OpenTrack handling team declarations, athlete down-aging, and all scoring calculations, our seamless integration meant we were able to deliver live team scores, medal tables, and all the reports and graphics needed for prizegiving instantly.

LUCA Open the Indoor Season

We’ve worked with London Universities and Colleges Athletics to deliver their championships for quite some time now, and the latest edition of the LUCA Indoor Championships was held on November 23rd.

In a hotly contested match making use of our versatile team scoring, KCL just beat UCL to take the crown in the first big indoor match of the season.

LUCA is a great example of one competition having many scoring tables - aside from the main team competition, the competition scores also have the United Hospitals Shield, for London’s medical schools to face off against each other, and an individual table to celebrate the individuals delivering the most points for their team!

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on a number of big things in recent months, so keep your eyes on your inboxes over the coming weeks for more from OpenTrack!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

More than 4000 competitors took part in 10 days of competition across six venues on the Portuguese island of Madeira, with OpenTrack providing support in-person and remotely to help the championships run smoothly.

In this update:

• OpenTrack in Madeira

• Building New Functionality

• Improvements for Everyone

Thousands of hours of hard work go into organising a championships of this size, both on the field of play and behind the scenes, and it would be impossible to cover everything, but hopefully this post will give you an insight into how it all unfolded from an OpenTrack point of view.

OpenTrack in Madeira

Delivering results at major events has typically meant large teams of trained operators flying in with extensive equipment, with all the associated costs.

OpenTrack was founded on the belief that the right software, in the right hands, can make athletics easier for everyone, and the championships in Madeira was a perfect opportunity to see this philosophy in action.

During my time as a sports administrator in Madeira, I have organised several international events, notably for European Athletics and European Masters Athletics.

At EMACS 2025, I worked with OpenTrack for registration and results for the first time, and I can say with complete certainty that they did an excellent job, without any flaws, thanks to their highly competent and resilient staff.

Policarpo Gouveia, Local Organising Committee President

The Model

After several weeks of careful preparation, the OpenTrack team arrived a few days before the start of the championships to train officials and volunteers on results input and management.

With two to three staff on site throughout, we oversaw live results, optimised and improved popular pages, and developed new features as part of our approach of continuous development — always making OpenTrack slightly better!

Delivering at Scale

Having a good results system is important, but making sure it’s responsive and always accessible is essential.

The first Sunday of the Championships saw more than 30,000 unique visitors access nearly 600,000 pages — a great illustration of our finding that for every athlete competing, there are usually ~10 friends, family members, clubmates, and rivals keeping track from afar!

This year’s vast improvements to scalability, performance, and user experience allowed us to guarantee 100% uptime across the championships, delivering performance (and performances!) when it really mattered.

Masters Athletics, Handled

Having worked closely with the British Masters Athletics Federation on their events for more than eight years, OpenTrack handles the intricacies of masters athletics seamlessly.

All of this came to the fore in Madeira, whether age-grading combined events scores, or handling composed teams for road and cross-country events — no messing around with spreadsheets needed, just instant results available to athletes, officials, and spectators alike!

Building New Functionality

The international stage is definitely the best place to debut something new and impressive, and we had a great time building new features that can now be of benefit to anyone using OpenTrack’s Competition Management System.

Competition Timetable

One of the most highly sought after features in OpenTrack has been a proper competition timetable, and we added this, displaying more than 1250 pools, heats, semi-finals, and finals, across 600+ different events.

Keeping track of events even on a single day is challenging, and so in addition to improving our day filter, we also extended the design to allow filtering by event code and venue — key improvements for athletes and spectators trying to track down start lists or results when in a stadium.

Race Walk Red Cards

With three race walking distances available at the championships, and plenty of athletes contesting the 5000m on track as well as the 10K and 20K on the road, we saw a great opportunity to improve our display for race walks, with graphical representations of red cards accumulated over the course of the race.

Interactive Medal Table

No international championships is complete without a medal table, and with more than 2000 medals handed out in Madeira, we made sure our medal table seamlessly handled every single one, whether team medallists in the road and cross-country events, relay teams, or those achieving individual glory.

As part of our continuous improvements for the championships, we added a Multiple Medallists tab, to best highlight the outstanding achievements of athletes winning medals across a wide range of events.

Topping the individual table was multiple world record-holder Sarah Roberts, with medals from short sprints (4x100m and 400m) all the way up to 10 kilometre distances on both the track and the road.

Live Screens

One of the most striking new features to debut out in Madeira was our live results screens. With results coming in instantly from photofinish using our uploader, athletes could cross the finish line and see their times on the big screen in a matter of seconds.

We now have a range of configurable live screens for anyone to use, whether for live track results, live field leaderboards, or a live medal table, and more are just around the corner!

Improvements for Everyone

As well as adding new functionality specifically for Madeira, we also made major improvements to our existing features.

Check In Screen

Our check in screen saw a complete overhaul, as a key part of competition planning for such a large championships is figuring out, after entries have closed, who actually plans to compete on the day.

With a dynamic deadline for each event, athletes were able to remotely check themselves in or out for their events from their phone, cutting admin time and giving officials the most up to date info on who was competing.

PDF Reports and Seeding Optimisations

We made improvements and tidy-ups to our range of PDF reports for start lists, results, and scoring, with all reports benefiting from a new, tidy header, as well as spacing, layout, and design improvements.

Additionally, with so much seeding to be done over the course of the championships, we streamlined our seeding processes, added extra tools for adjusting lane draws and added much-needed functionality to allow organisers to vary the number of available lanes across multiple rounds — crucial when holding 100 metre heats and semi-finals in two different stadia!

We were delighted to be able to play such a key part in one of the largest athletics competitions in the world, and we’re ready to bring our top-tier competition management features to many more.

Whether you’re looking for a solution for your open meeting, or an experienced and knowledgeable team to help you run a major championships, OpenTrack can help you deliver athletics with ease and at scale.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• Impressive Island Games

• Nationals, Internationals, and the WA Continental Tour

• Donovan Leagues Ahead

Whether you’re an athlete, coach, or competition organiser, one of the most important things is getting competition results in front of as many people as possible, and that’s why we’re thrilled that the past three months have each seen nearly five million pageviews across all of OpenTrack’s competitions, almost a 50% increase on 2024.

With more than 100,000 results on OpenTrack so far this year, whether it’s junior athletes in their first ever competition or world medallists aiming to add to their collection, we couldn’t be more pleased to be bringing every performance closer to as big an audience as possible.

The past month has seen national and international championships, more meetings and results in July than ever before, and there’s still plenty more to come before the end of the outdoor season!

Impressive Island Games

After the Guernsey-hosted 2023 International Island Games, this year saw Orkney play host to six days of international athletics, relying once again on OpenTrack’s Competition Management System for all their results needs.

OpenTrack’s TV console was in use to provide livestream graphics throughout the week, with seeding and photofinish integration also key in helping things run smoothly.

We recently concluded an exceptionally successful week of Athletics at the International Island Games in Orkney. As one of twelve sports, our athletics event featured athletes from twenty-one islands from around the world.

As organisers, we were pleased with the OpenTrack platform, which provided seeding & live results for all track and field events during each session. The OpenTrack team provided 24-hour support throughout the games week. The platform’s live streaming capabilities were integrated, and the graphic drop-downs were effectively utilised to enhance the livestream offer. Our announcers were particularly appreciative of the platform’s ability to provide access to all athletes’ season-best forms.

Aly MacPhail, Athletics Orkney 2025 Coordinator

Nationals, Internationals, and the WA Continental Tour

It might be cheating to include the first week of August in a July roundup, but with last weekend being one designated by World Athletics for national championships, those keeping track would have seen the Serbian, Bosnian, Cypriot, Estonian, and Bulgarian championships taking place on OpenTrack, not to mention the Maltese championships at the beginning of the month.

In Serbia, reigning long jump world champion Ivana Španović took a long jump and triple jump double, with her slightly windy 14.43 (+2.6) just outside of the top 10 all conditions jumps in the world this year.

Outside of those championships, Cyprus hosted a Greek contingent for their biennial U18 international, making use of OpenTrack’s automated scoring as the visitors came out on top in both the men’s and women’s matches.

The country-hopping Continental Tour also recently made its way to Serbia, with the country hosting the fourth edition of the bronze-level Serbia Athletics Meeting.

In the women’s 100 metres, Jamaican 200m champion Ashanti Moore produced the performance of the meeting in breaking the 11-second barrier for the first time in her career, leading home a strong field in 10.94 with just a slight following wind (+0.7).

Donovan Leagues Ahead

In the UK, the performance of the month came in the men’s 400m hurdles at the National Athletics League Premiership match in Derby, where Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow’s Tyri Donovan set a league record of 48.46 to catapult himself into the UK top 10 all time.

With Thames Valley Harriers taking the match by just 6 points from Harrow, it remains all to play for ahead of the third and final match in Birmingham, with one match win apiece for the two lead clubs so far this season.

There’s plenty more to come in August, let alone the rest of the year, and we’d love to add your competition to the list of those using OpenTrack to make their life easier.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

Whilst it’s the middle of the summer at our Wimbledon base, the Saudi track and field season is over, and we’re delighted to take a look back at the successful season that was.

In this update:

• Saudi Arabian National Athletics Championship

• Arabic language localisation

• Looking to the future

With nearly 12,000 results across 40 competition days, OpenTrack’s Competition Management System was in use to keep admin to a minimum, and keep the athletics moving!

Saudi Arabian National Athletics Championship

Most significant of all the events in the calendar was the National Athletics Championship (Men), a World Athletics B-level competition with plenty of performers aiming to qualify for Tokyo 2025.

The standout performer was Abdulaziz Atifi, the sprinter undefeated across the weekend as he took both the 100 metre and 200 metre titles, with his 20.14 in the longer event a new national record.

The National Athletics Championship underscored the transformative impact of OpenTrack on athletics in the Kingdom. Serving as the largest and most significant competition hosted on this platform, the championship attracted elite athletes and provided a vital qualifying opportunity for prominent regional and international events.

The National Athletics Championship was not merely a competition but a display of how innovative systems like OpenTrack shape the future of athletics in Saudi Arabia. The combination of cutting-edge technology and sporting talent heralds a new era for the Kingdom's athletic endeavors, fostering a vibrant environment for athletes and fans.

Rami Hamzah, Shared Services Manager, Saudi Athletics Federation

Arabic language localisation

In partnership with SAAF, much of OpenTrack has already been translated into Arabic, and we’re continuing to work over the next few months on making sure that things are 100% friendly for Arabic speakers.

We’re looking forward to expanding OpenTrack’s user base more widely among those who primarily use Arabic, and would welcome any feedback - just get in touch!

Looking to the future

One successful season is great, but there’s still plenty more to do, and we can’t wait for the upcoming season.

In the meantime, we’re working on expanding usage of OpenTrack’s Federation Management System, building friendly interfaces with national athlete databases, and making sure that more people than ever can access a seamless Competition Management System across the entire competition spectrum.

Using OpenTrack has significantly enhanced how we manage our competitions. The platform offers transparency, efficiency, and real-time results, elevating the overall experience for organizers and athletes.

Faissal Alshanqiti, Head of National Teams, Saudi Athletics Federation

We couldn’t be more pleased with how the launch of OpenTrack’s Federation and Competition Management Systems went this year in Saudi Arabia, and would be delighted to help you revolutionise your athletics in a similar way.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

If you’re looking for a regular OpenTrack update, we’ll be back in a few days!

In this update:

• Who can get involved

• How to get involved

• Key dates

In the run-up to this summer’s Athletics Technology conference, taking place in San Marino from October 7-9th, European Athletics is launching a summer hackathon.

Who can get involved

If you’re in a university athletics club studying a computing discipline and fancy a project, or know anyone who is, please pass this on! Likewise, it’s open to any hobby developers, or professionals with a bit of free time on their hands.

How to get involved

Developers will be challenged to do something cool and innovative using the full data from last summer’s Rome European Championships, A data set has been released including full results, plus the racing history of every athlete who took part.

The winners will receive tickets to the next European Championships, and a chance to present at AthTech - full details can be found on the AthTech website.

Key dates

June 19th, 16:00 BST

Webinar for anyone wishing to float ideas or learn more about the challenge

July 14th (TBC)

Interim follow-up with participants

September 1st

Final submission deadline for all projects

OpenTrack have worked together with European Athletics since 2016 to try and foster digital innovation to help the sport. Our founder is on the conference organising committee and will be helping to steer and judge any applications.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• Harrow edge out reigning champions TVH

• Machin a world-beater again

• City of York win on debut

With more than 1000 athletes competing over the five opening matches of the 2025 NAL, OpenTrack’s team scoring functionality kept athletes, coaches, and spectators up to date the length and breadth of the UK.

Harrow edge out reigning champions TVH

The opening Premiership match of the season delivered for any neutrals watching, as reigning champions Thames Valley Harriers had a closely-fought battle with eventual winners Harrow over the course of the competition.

Plenty of early scoring saw Harrow into an early lead, as they scored the maximum 22 points in six events over the course of the day, more than any other club.

Two of those maximums came in the men’s and women’s sprint hurdles, with Marli Jessop’s winning 13.33 good enough for fifth-fastest woman in the UK in a very strong year for British hurdling.

Machin a world-beater again

Crawley’s Julia Machin may have only placed fourth in the women’s high jump at the Championship South, but having only recently turned 55, the former British international made headlines in Poole, breaking the world record in the W55 category.

Machin equalled the previous mark of 1.55, which had stood for 17 years, on her first attempt, before clearing 1.60 at the second time of asking to make the record her own, and add to her W50 world best of 1.68 set in 2021.

For more information, you can read the National Athletics League’s full write up here.

City of York win on debut

Making their first foray into the National Athletics league were City of York AC, hosting their first ever match in the Championship West.

A closely-fought match with the Manchester-based duo of Sale Harriers Manchester and Trafford AC saw the host side come out on top, their lead extended by victories in the final two races of the day, the men’s and women’s 4x400 metres.

We’re looking forward to the next round of the NAL at the beginning of July, but there’s plenty more to come before then, including plenty of national championships this weekend!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• History continues at the Varsity Match

• Speed Masters Athletics returns

• Comeback 5000 turns 5

This update looks back at plenty of highlights from recent weeks — the historic Oxford and Cambridge Varsity Match, a slightly more recent addition to the calendar in Speed Masters Athletics in Albania, and elite performances at the fifth edition of the Comeback 5000.

History continues at the Varsity Match

Cambridge’s Wilberforce Road track played host to the 150th men’s and 50th women’s Varsity Athletics Match on May 17th, with athletes from both Oxford and Cambridge universities battling for athletics glory, and bragging rights for the next 12 months.

With OpenTrack’s scoring functionality in heavy use, Cambridge men’s first team ran out victors by some margin (123.5 points to 86.5), as Oxford took the women’s fixture by nine points, while both second team matches fell to Cambridge on home turf.

Speed Masters Athletics returns

After an inaugural edition last May, Shkodër, Albania once again played host to Speed Masters Athletics. Part of the first official season of the European Masters Athletics (EMA) League, more than 500 competitors entered for four days of competition on track and in the field.

With athletes’ age graded performances being aggregated across the season as part of the EMA League, it was the UK’s Mensah Elliott who came away with the best score, a 14.78 in the 110m hurdles scoring him 96.02%.

Just as important was the social experience for masters athletes from across the world meeting up outside of their usual formal championships setting.

It's wholesome, it's very friendly, the social aspect is great, and the camaraderie is superb. The support from the spectators is universal, regardless of who you are and what country you're from - everyone is cheering for everyone else.

It's a great opportunity to introduce yourself into international competition in a way that’s not as intimidating as a championship.

Donald Brown, meeting announcer

Comeback 5000 turns 5

Born as one of the first elite post-lockdown meetings in the UK in 2021, Comeback 5000 returned Friday 23rd for their fifth edition, concluding as always with elite races for men and women.

In the women’s race, an in-form India Weir led home Lucy Jones, showing range after her 2:30:23 clocking at the London Marathon.

On the men’s side, there were plenty of PBs to share around as British Universities cross-country champion Tomer Tarragano beat a field where nine of the top 10 secured a PB.

Watch this space for more updates and details on how OpenTrack is being used by organisers at the top level across Europe and beyond!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• Sub-4 miles at Iffley Road: a history lesson

• Elite performances, and hours of miles

• Making competition happen: a look behind the scenes

  • Event Organisation — British Milers Club

  • Photofinish — Running2Time

  • Live Streaming — 247.tv

With the 2025 event a major success, we thought it would be good to take a look back at the event’s history, the best of the most recent edition, and the people who make the magic happen!

Sub-4 miles at Iffley Road: a history lesson

Oxford played host to perhaps the most famous event in British sporting history on 6 May 1954, when Sir Roger Bannister became the first person to break four minutes for the mile on the Iffley Road track.

OUCCC started to organise an Iffley Festival of Miles in 2010, with entries on OpenTrack from 2022, and the 70th anniversary in 2024 saw the event rebranded and professionalised with the support of the university and the Bannister family.

Bannister Miles continues to go from strength-to-strength every year. With eight sub-4 miles in two years, and numerous PBs, particularly amongst junior athletes, we hope this event will become the target event for early season openers. Working with the BMC we are proud to put on an event which is professional, exciting, and enjoyable for athletes and spectators alike. Roll on 2026, we can’t wait!

Tom Renshaw, Event Organiser

Elite performances, and hours of miles

The day’s program started with a morning mass road mile open to anyone, including a multi-generational family race with kids as young as 2 enjoying the excitement.

With 24 mile races across nearly four hours of racing, some 310 athletes (from as far afield as Mexico, Australia, and Chile) registered performances, including in the men’s and women’s steeplechase miles, back for a second year after their global debut at the meeting last year.

After plenty of age group and sub-elite racing, the A races were the highlight of the program at the end of the day, with Holly Dixon running out winner in the women’s A race, a 4:40.05 clocking taking more than 20 seconds off her previous best.

With the sun making an appearance for the final few races, and the men’s A race commenced with temperature perfect for racing. Wirral AC athlete Joe Wigfield had a clear lead as the pacemaker dropped out at 1000 metres, but a strong chase behind saw three others go sub-4.

The Bannister family have played a huge role in promoting the event and were there again this year to present prizes and enjoy the action.

Making competition happen: a look behind the scenes

OpenTrack and Oxford University Athletic Club have very deep connections; our founder was a member in the late 1980s and we’ve been taking entries and doing results for all of their competitions for several years.

On this occasion, we were present to do the often unseen job of making sure all the systems needed to make a modern meeting run were talking to each other — and to enjoy meeting people who’ve trained and raced at Oxford in decades past! Perhaps the most illustrious guest was David Hemery, sadly not competing, but we’re working on him for next year’s masters race!

Event Organisation — British Milers Club

As the Iffley Festival of Miles got bigger and bigger, it became too much for students to organise, so for last year’s 70th anniversary the university formally became involved and the BMC took responsibility for the track races, organising entries, programme and all the officials. The team is led by Matthew Fraser Moat, also an ex-Oxford University middle distance runner, who trained under BMC founder Frank Horwill.

The BMC has always had Oxford as its spiritual home, we feel that the current format of the Bannister Miles is perfect, and we hope to be associated with the meeting for many years to come. The current format of just miles seems to attract just the right number of people, and it is a good mix of people as well.

Matthew Fraser Moat, BMC Treasurer and Meeting Director

We can happily reveal that from this summer onwards, BMC membership management is moving to OpenTrack, allowing us to fuse entries and results — for next year’s races, we will hopefully have a lot less work to do!

Photofinish - Running2Time

Photofinish services were provided very professionally by Running2Time, set up by Mark Delgado, a Level 4 photofinish expert who has worked at World Championships. We liaised closely throughout the meeting, as there were a couple of extra details, such as recording 1500 splits as well as mile times.

Live Streaming — 247.tv

The meeting live stream (linked below) was produced by 247.tv, who cover numerous athletics events including the UK indoor and outdoor championships.

OpenTrack made all timetables, start lists, and results available to 247.tv via our APIs — the same technology used by our own TV Console — and they connected up a couple of days ahead of the competition to test things, so were able to pull in the information into their own graphics engine, offering a professional TV-like experience for anyone not in the stadium, and for all of the athletes to view afterwards.

We’re now able to deliver a fully professional TV-like streaming service for just a couple of thousand pounds, with production in our in-house studio, and three cameramen on site; this opens things up to anyone not in the stadium, and in turn lets events like this bring in sponsors.

Adrian Battersby - Founder, 247.tv

OUCCC and OUAC are full of tech-savvy students and they also remember the basics - like printing out QR codes to tell everyone where they can find the results and the live stream!

Overall this was an extremely well-run and enjoyable meeting for everyone involved, which achieved all of its goals. We look forward to being part of it in years to come!

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news

In this update:

• Athlete Licensing

• Anti-Doping Disclaimers

• Club Affiliations

We’ve been delighted to work with ANI for the for the past three years to provide our Federation Management System to manage their clubs and athletes — read on to hear all about it!

Athlete Licensing

By far the biggest undertaking every year for club and federation administrators alike is making sure athletes are fully licensed for competition.

Each year, OpenTrack’s renewal window functionality means athletes in Northern Ireland have 30 days before their licences are due to expire, allowing time to get everyone paid up for the season ahead.

Club admins can choose to renew any number of athletes in their club, whether 1, 10, or 100, paying for licences through our easy Stripe integration, or by requesting an invoice that OpenTrack then generates automatically, allowing them to pay via bank transfer.

For staff at ANI, they’ve moved from manually accepting each licence to granting licences automatically, provided athletes are paid up and have accepted the ANI-specific anti-doping disclaimer, which brings us onto our next section

Anti-Doping Disclaimers

For the last few years, UK Athletics have required all athletes entering licensed competitions to accept a set of anti-doping terms, making sure that everyone acknowledges the need to be following the rules.

Whilst the option to include these terms in the competition entry process has been available for organisers using our Competition Management System since the beginning, athletes in Northern Ireland have things even simpler.

Each Northern Irish athlete, (or parent of an athlete for those under 16) is required to accept the terms to be eligible for a licence, and therefore to be able to compete.

When managing athlete licences, club administrators can see who has and hasn’t signed, and therefore who to nudge, and there are clear warnings when trying to renew the licences of athletes who haven’t signed to make sure no-one slips through.

Club Affiliations

The final piece of the federation management puzzle is making sure that clubs, as well as their athletes, are affiliated.

With online and offline payment options, just like for athletes, federation administrators at ANI have the option to mark club affiliations as paid if they’ve gone via bank transfer, or club administrators can renew directly through OpenTrack.

These options are available as soon as the renewal window starts, allowing clubs to ensure they’re always up to date.

Once payment has been made, the club’s affiliation is valid for another year - simple as that!

OpenTrack’s Federation Management System is a powerful tool that cuts admin time, helping federation staff spend more time delivering athletics — if you think your federation could benefit, we’d love to give you a demo.

As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.

Check out other OpenTrack news