World Skate unveils new format and bigger ambitions for Marathon Tour 2026
World Skate’s Marathon Tour opened its third season with a new two-type format, prize money and a March 29 Shanghai stage at Bund Bull Square.
World Skate has put a sharper frame around marathon skating, branding the 2026 Marathon Tour with the slogan “A new season. A new format. Bigger dreams.” The federation’s draft general bulletin calls it the third season of the Speed World Skate Marathon Tour, and the new structure is aimed at making the long-distance branch easier to read and easier to sell.
The biggest change is structural. The draft general bulletin says the 2026 season introduces a new competition format with stages divided into two competition types, a cleaner setup than the first-ever World Skate Marathon Tour, which ended after three stages in 2024. World Skate also said the 2025 tour began in Shanghai and later officially concluded, which makes the 2026 reset look less like a one-off launch and more like an attempt to build a stable annual product.
The first stage is scheduled for March 29 at Bund Bull Square in Huangpu District, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. The Shanghai Stage bulletin identifies three participation categories, PRO, Masters and Amateur, and it also references prize money. That matters because marathon skating has long sat in an awkward middle ground between elite international racing and mass-participation road events; clearer categories and a cash incentive give the tour more of a professional spine.
World Skate’s 2026 speed archive also points to a P2P Pamplona-Puente Skate Marathon Challenger Stage, while the federation’s 2026 calendar folds speed marathon and open marathon entries into the wider World Skate Games program. That broader calendar logic gives marathon skating a more legible place inside the federation’s system. It creates a path from challenge-level stops to the marquee international stages, which should help federations plan travel and athletes manage training blocks across the season.
The positioning is the real story here. World Skate is not just adding races; it is trying to make marathon skating distinct within roller sports by tightening the season structure, separating competition types and linking the tour to its broader championship ecosystem. With only three seasons behind it, the tour is still young, but the 2026 version looks more deliberate than the early editions. If the federation can keep the format clear and the calendar coherent, marathon skating has a better shot at becoming a recognizable series instead of a loose collection of long races.
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