Athlos: Founders head to Downing Street as athletics meet eyes London future
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian will visit Downing Street as his all-female athletics event Athlos eyes a long-term future in London ahead of this week’s inaugural event in the capital.
The track and field showcase, which began in 2024 and has been run thus far in New York, will head to Saracens’ Stone X stadium on Friday and feature the likes of Keely Hodgkinson and disciplines including sprints, middle-distance races and the long jump.
Ahead of its London debut, its founders, including former Angel City executive and Athlos president Kayla Green, will visit No10 tomorrow and hail the city as a long-term potential host for the competition.
“Athletics in London, there’s nothing like it,” Green told Morning Wire. “The UK fans are incredible. We knew as soon as we were coming to Europe, London was top of the list. It was always top of the list for us.
“The very first European athletics meet that Alexis and I had ever attended was actually the London Diamond League in 2024 [with] 60,000 fans in a stadium, all completely invested in the sport.
“There was no question that London was going to be our first international city.”
Athlos, which cancelled its New York event scheduled for next month in a move Ohanian said was related to athlete rest and recovery, will be run in front of around 10,000 in north London but increasing scale in the city could depend on other stadiums and their desire to host track and field.
There have been calls for City Hall to sell the London Stadium to West Ham United in a move that could, if unprotected, see the London 2012 athletics track paved over.
Athlos future in London
Elsewhere the old Crystal Palace arena is undergoing a £100m regeneration with ambitions to host athletics in south London once more. This project is years from completion.
“We would love to scale [in London],” Green added. “Like many startups, we need to be intentional about our growth and so it’s really about continuing to prove the product-market fit and shape and sharpen the product itself as we think about expanding.
“But the fans are here. The fans want to see it. And so for us, the priority is always about putting these athletes on the largest stage possible and giving them visibility.”
Athlos will partner with Cash App this year in a move that will see athletes paid within minutes of their race result being confirmed. It comes after fellow athletics startup Grand Slam Track filed for bankruptcy within its first season, leaving athletes unpaid for long periods of time.
Athlos takes place on Friday with the likes of Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas, Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell all confirmed as starters across the evening.