Athletes in World Athletics Continental Tour action in Turku (© World Athletics)
The World Athletics Continental Tour featured record numbers in 2024, with more than 20,000 athletes from almost 200 countries competing across the series of some 270 meetings.
The Continental Tour is divided into four levels – Gold, Silver, Bronze and Challenger – and in 2024 it included meetings in all six continental areas.
One world record, 12 area records and 205 national records were set in Continental Tour meetings held between January and September, with two more Challenger meetings – in Japan and Paraguay – still to take place in October and November.
Many of the world’s best athletes used the Continental Tour as an important platform in a year that included the Olympic Games in Paris. The tour’s top Gold tier, which featured 11 meetings, kicked off in Melbourne in February and ended in Zagreb in September.
• Read and watch: highlights from the 2024 Continental Tour Gold season
Across all tiers, the 2024 series was capped by the world discus record of 74.35m set by Lithuania’s Mykolas Alekna at the Oklahoma Throws Series World Invitational, a Continental Tour Bronze meeting, in Ramona on 14 April.
Dutch hurdles star Femke Bol improved her own European 400m hurdles record to 50.95 at the Resisprint La Chaux-de-Fonds, a Continental Tour Challenger event, in Switzerland on 14 July to become just the second woman in history to break 51 seconds for the discipline.
Canada’s Ethan Katzberg, now Olympic hammer champion, started his season in style by throwing a North American record at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Nairobi, while his compatriot Marco Arop helped the Gold season to end on a high by setting an area 1000m record of 2:13.13 in Zagreb.
The 2024 Continental Tour in numbers
Athletes
20,443 athletes from 193 countries in 271 meetings
Gold: 1480 athletes from 105 countries in 11 meetings
Silver: 3125 athletes from 141 countries in 41 meetings
Bronze: 8786 athletes from 174 countries in 83 meetings
Challenger: 14,010 athletes from 165 countries in 133 meetings
Records
1 world record
12 area records
205 national records
7146 personal bests
Countries with the most Continental Tour meetings
| Country | Total | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Challenger |
| Germany | 29 | 2 | 7 | 20 | |
| USA | 18 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 1 |
| France | 18 | 3 | 7 | 8 | |
| Poland | 14 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 5 |
| Spain | 12 | 1 | 5 | 6 | |
| Italy | 11 | 1 | 2 | 8 | |
| Greece | 10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | |
| Switzerland | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | |
| Great Britain & NI | 9 | 1 | 8 |
Another 54 countries organised Continental Tour meetings in 2024. Full calendar
Continental Tour growth
| Year | Athletes | Countries | Meetings |
| 2021 | 6,682 | 147 | 69 |
| 2022 | 11,793 | 159 | 152 |
| 2023 | 15,552 | 173 | 230 |
| 2024 | 20,443 | 193 | 271 |
The Continental Tour, which launched for its first full season in 2021, is designed to provide athletes with more high calibre competitive opportunities to earn prize money and world ranking points while reaching fans in nearly every corner of the world.
World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon said: “I’m delighted that the Continental Tour continues to deliver against its four key goals: to provide a clearly understood global competition system which provides more prize money to athletes and encourages them to compete more regularly; to encourage meeting organisers to increase the quality and prize money of their meetings; to motivate new meetings to be established; and to grow the sport in new markets around the world.
“Alongside this, the Continental Tour Gold meetings are broadcast live in more than 140 territories around the world as well as on the Inside Track platform on World Athletics.”
The full 2025 Continental Tour calendar will be announced in the coming weeks.
World Athletics
