RunThrough Announces £60,000 Top Flight Elite Race Series with Twelve Races Held Across the 2024 Season to Crown Top Flight Champions
22nd December 2023
LONDON, UK: RunThrough has announced the creation of the £60,000 ‘Top Flight’ elite race series. The Top Flight series will encompass 12 events in 2024, all of which will offer significant prize purses as well as points counting towards each athlete’s Top Flight ranking. Then at the end of the season each athlete’s Top Flight ranking will determine the series champion.
RunThrough’s intention in creating this new elite race series is to support top flight athletics in the UK by providing new high level platforms for competition.The Top Flight series will also create exciting and exhilarating racing for fans to watch and support, generating compelling story lines throughout the season as the athletes battle to claim the inaugural Top Flight crown.
The twelve races that will make up the Top Flight series will be existing RunThrough races held across the UK but with newly added Top Flight status. There will be a minimum standard required for athletes to earn prize money and be included in the Top Flight rankings. The season finalé will be held at the Ribble Valley 10k in December 2024 where the male and female Top Flight series Champions will be crowned. The races included as part of the Top Flight series are listed below.
Each Top Flight race will carry a maximum prize purse of £4,000 (including time bonuses), split equally between male and female athletes. Prize money will be paid to male and female athletes that finish 1st-8th in each Top Flight race, providing they run under a pre-published qualifying time. There will also be individual bonus payments available for any athlete, male or female who breaks the course record, sets a UK leading time or breaks a RunThrough record. The prize money per event will be broken down as follows.
In addition to the prize money available at each event, there will be highly valuable Top Flight rankings points that will count towards each athlete’s Top Flight series ranking which will determine who will become series champion at the Ribble Valley 10k in December 2024, the season finalé. Each athlete’s three best points results will count towards their series total to decide the first ever male and female Top Flight Champions. The table below outlines the points available per event.
The structure of the series will ensure that consistent high level performances are rewarded as well as creating drama and season long narratives for fans, both existing and new, to engage with.
Matt Wood, RunThrough Co-Founder, commented ‘’When Ben Green and I started RunThrough back in 2013 our knowledge and background was in elite athletics, with both of us competing internationally. We always dreamed that one day we would be able to invest back into the top end of the sport we love so much. Over the years we have had Olympic and World Champions compete at RunThrough races as well as the best distance athletes in the UK. The creation of the Top Flight series by RunThrough is a great first step in formalising a new elite series.”
Chris Parr, Top Flight series Director, added: “RunThrough’s Top Flight series is providing a super competitive new performance platform for the top runners in the UK and beyond. We have included some of our fastest and flattest courses at our biggest events of the year to make the racing as exciting as possible; with events spread across the UK. The monthly series will feature talented athletes from across the middle and long distance running spectrum and with a balanced points system, meaning that the series finalé will be sure to create a gripping showdown of the best 5km, 10km and Half Marathon runners.”
Full details for elite prize money and entry to Top Flight races can be found here. Fans wishing to engage with and follow the Top Flight series and the thrilling narratives that it is sure to deliver can do so by following Top Flight Races on Instagram where all of the latest news, results and athlete info will be available!
—Ends—
For Further Information
Images can be found here.
Press Contact: Jamie Dellimore, RunThrough PR & Comms Manager E: [email protected]
About RunThrough: RunThrough is the UK’s largest and Europe’s fastest growing running events company, holding 215 events with 200,000 individual runners entering an event this year. RunThrough sits under the GW Active parent brand that also encompasses the RT Kit, RunThrough Trails, Swim Bike RunThrough as well as flagship events including Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon, Surrey Half Marathon, Alton Towers Resort 10km and Half Marathon alongside the full calendar of events. RunThrough’s mission is to inspire a more active nation through running and the provision of quality, inclusive event experiences for runners of all ages and abilities and to be a leading voice within the endurance and mass participation industries. The organisation was founded in 2012 by Matt Wood and Ben Green, two former international runners from the north-west of England with a dream to share their passion for running to inspire the nation.