Athlos, the women's-only track series founded by Alexis Ohanian, has cancelled its New York meet scheduled for 2 October at Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island. The decision was announced last Friday evening in a video statement from Ohanian and an accompanying written explanation, and it arrives barely five weeks before the meet was due to take place. Its London debut on 18 September at StoneX Stadium in Barnet is now the entirety of the series' 2026 season.
London had already been positioned as the growth story for the year. The meet will be carried live in the United Kingdom by the BBC, which was named the series' UK broadcast partner earlier this summer, and it sits five days after the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship concludes in Budapest. That timing, Athlos argued, works: athletes who are already at peak fitness for Budapest can reasonably extend their seasons by less than a week for a well-paid final outing.
The New York date could not make the same case. Two further weeks beyond London would have pushed leading athletes into what is normally the first stretch of their end-of-season break, and the series indicated that securing sufficient athlete commitment for 2 October had become the sticking point. Athlos has also signalled that from 2027 it intends to place its meets within the main athletics calendar rather than at its tail, which would represent a fundamental change of approach.
That change matters because the late-season slot was the series' original selling point. Athlos launched in September 2024 at Icahn Stadium with a prize purse large enough to attract many of the sport's leading women after the Olympic season had finished, and its second edition in October 2025 followed the same logic. Plans announced for 2026 had included multiple meets and a team-based format; the series has now stepped back from both.
The cancellation invites obvious comparisons with Grand Slam Track, which was mocked by some in the Athlos camp when it called off a meet last year. More substantively, it raises the question of what Athlos wants to be. Moving into the heart of the season means competing with established Diamond League meetings for venues, dates and, above all, athletes, and the Diamond League's response to Grand Slam Track's arrival suggests that welcome will be cool. For now, the series has one night in north London to make its argument.