The Running World Cup is the world’s first global virtual running event you get to run for your country. It the biggest virtual mass participation event, open to everyone aged 13yrs+, where no matter your ability or where you are, you can take part and represent your country.

The 2022 Running World Cup has three knockout rounds before you can be crown a running world champion. The Qualifiers, Round of 16 and the Finals.

Qualifiers: 20th Sept – 25th Sept

Round of 16: 27th Sept – 2nd Oct

Finals: 4th Oct – 9th Oct

In each round you’ll battle it out with the rest of the world to get through to the next round.

For a country to progress in the Running World Cup it needs to be in the top 16 after the Qualifiers have ended and in the top four at the end of the Round of 16 to get through to the Finals. Scores will be reset to zero at the end of each round and those countries who don’t make it through will be eliminated. But don’t worry, if your country doesn’t get through, you can still continue running in your teams and achieve your weekly goals to help vaccinate a child.

You can look at each country’s rankings in the app on the Tournament page with the leaderboard and track your countries progress on the Progress page to see total Kms and points scored.

The Running World Cup is completely different to any global World Cup as it is about mass participation. This year, participants from the winning country will receive a certificate that they can download from our app.

For us to track runs globally in the Running World Cup we do need participants to have their own smartphone/smartwatch or access to one. If you do not have access to one at all, unfortunately you will not be able to take part. We are looking at ways to include even more people in the future and hope you understand why this is not possible for this year.

We welcome all aged 13yrs+ to the Running World Cup. We are a running competition and so the criteria to qualify is for the individual to run 3Km in less than 30 minutes. This also needs to be tracked via one of the running trackers involved in the event.

It is not essential to download the mobile app if you have registered via the web app with a laptop/tablet. However, you can download Running World Cup mobile app via the iOS App Store or Google Play Store.

The minimum age for taking part in the Running World Cup is 13yrs. This matches with the safety of completing a minimum 3Km run within 30 minutes required to qualify a run in the event, and with the age required for social media sites, which we will use throughout the event.

The Running World Cup rules mean you can only run for one country, but you can choose that country on sign up. You can change your country at any point up until you have run a qualifying run for that country, then your email address will be linked to that country for the remainder of the tournament. You can run for a different country to the country you currently live in.

With so many people taking part globally, we hope you will understand why we can’t deal with each query personally. Hopefully you will find the answer to all of your questions in this section, or by using our chatbot (located in the bottom right hand corner). If we cannot provide the solution to your question here, please leave your question with our chatbot and we will do our best to get back to you.

We are a small organisation with big ambitions, based in the UK but with captains and runners all over the world – we hope we can do our little bit to get the world more active in a truly unique and memorable way.

Every participant needs to register their details with the Running World Cup and choose a run tracker to track their runs. You can register via the web application at app.runningworldcup.com or you can download the Running World Cup mobile app via the iOS App Store or Google Play Store. You must have registered via one of these routes.

Whoever you are and wherever you are, you can take part. The Running World Cup is tracked via your smartphone or device so you can run anywhere at any time within the time windows for each round. Good luck!

Great question! We are expecting up to 1 million people to participate in the Running World Cup this year. We’d love you to join us!

To help your country win the Running World Cup there are 2 key things you can do.

1. Sign up and run as much as you can during the Qualifiers. You get points for the amount of Kms you run for your country which helps your country get through to the next round.
2. Achieve your bonus points! Bonus points are awarded for inviting friends and family to join, weekly goals achieved and for how far you’ve run. So, if you sign up 3 people that’s the same as you doing 3 more 3Km runs!

Although the Running World Cup won’t be televised in the traditional sense, be sure to send in your photos and videos to us on Instagram for a chance to feature on our page! Furthermore, if you are looking for media involvement, check out The Running Channel on YouTube!

We have grouped together nations that previously had very few participants to help them get a larger group of runners together. These groups form under 2 clusters, smaller European nations, and then global islands of a smaller population size.

To help encourage runners throughout the tournament to get more active even if their country is knocked out, we will set each runner a weekly goal for the duration of the VRWC. The goals are intended to be achievable but challenging, but also a bit of fun. Goals will increase/decrease each week depending on your effort of the previous week.

If you have been registered with the Running World Cup for a while and we have some run data on you we have set your goal based on your recent runs. If we currently have no run data from your trackers or you have just recently signed up, we have set your weekly goal to begin at 5km. If you successfully achieve that goal your target will increase by 10% for the next week and rounded up to the nearest KM and capped at 10KM. If you fail to achieve your goal the following week your target will drop back to your starting goal for week 1, or stay the same if you have hit previous goals.

All runners who achieve their weekly goal will unlock a donation reward to UNICEF to help vaccinate children in need across the world