The 2026/27 Elite Series: five races and how athletes qualify

The Elite Series is the top tier of the season, a run of races in which the highest-ranked athletes compete for points, podiums and places at the World Championships. The organiser lists five Elite Series races for 2026/27.

The schedule

Race	City	Dates
1	Hamburg	30–31 October 2026 (results)
2	London	3–4 December 2026
3	Bangkok	11–12 February 2027
4	Las Vegas	12–13 March 2027
5	Lyon	13–14 May 2027

Each round features an Elite 15 race and a Challenger 15 race, in both Singles and Doubles. The season ends at the World Championships in Hong Kong, which the official event finder lists for 10–13 June 2027.

Elite 15 and Challenger 15

The Elite 15 is the field of the fifteen top-ranked athletes in a division. The Challenger 15 covers the athletes ranked 16th to 30th and runs on the same stage.

How qualification works

According to the organiser:

• Athletes need an athlete licence to earn ranking points.
• Points come from a global leaderboard that looks back over a rolling 365 days.
• Singles rankings count an athlete's best five results. Doubles rankings count the best three.
• Doubles pairs must share a nationality to earn points and to race in the series.
• Qualification for each round locks roughly 21 days before the race. The top fifteen in each division are invited to the Elite 15, and those ranked 16th to 30th to the Challenger 15.
• From the second race onward, each Elite 15 field is the top fourteen ranked athletes plus the winner of the previous round's Challenger 15.

That rule gives a Challenger 15 winner a direct route into the next Elite 15 field, regardless of where they sit in the rankings.

How athletes reach the World Championships

Only the top three athletes or doubles teams in each Elite Series race qualify for the World Championships. Results can still change after a results challenge or doping control, and an athlete who qualifies this way cannot also race an age-group division at the World Championships. There is no Challenger 15 race at the World Championships.

In Hamburg, that meant six singles athletes and six doubles teams secured their places. Our singles and doubles results list who they were.

How we will cover it

We publish previews, results and analysis for each round, each clearly labelled. Results are linked to the organiser's official results service. See our elite coverage page and our editorial standards.