Junior Age Group Changes - From April 2026

Wed 6 Aug 2025

As many of you will know, UK Athletics is introducing changes to junior age group competition in 2026, moving from ‘odd’ to ‘even’ year bands. The aim is to better support athlete development and help retain young runners during GCSE and A-Level exam years, when many currently find themselves at the top of an age group.

Over the past year, we’ve discussed these changes with UK Athletics, other fell running associations, and taken on feedback from parents and race organisers.

The FRA will adopt the new system - with some important caveats:

• The junior categories will change from U9, U11, U13, U15, U17 and U19
  to U10, U12, U14, U16, U18 and U20.
• This will take effect officially from 1 April 2026, but we ask race organisers to adopt the new groups from 1 January 2026 as we start racing much earlier in the year
• Age group cut-offs will remain unchanged. That means a runner’s age group will still be determined by their age on 31 December of the competition year.
• Minimum age for the U10 category remains six years old.
• Maximum race distances will also stay the same, as set out on the FRA website:
  • U10: 1km
  • U12: 2km
  • U14: 3km
  • U16: 5km
  • U18: 7km
  • U20: 10km

We encourage organisers to devise junior routes that are interesting and challenging, while staying within these limits.

We’re looking into ways to support race organisers with this transition, and welcome suggestions. Please contact [email protected]

We believe this is a positive step to help keep more young people involved in the sport we all value. Adoption of the new age groups will be a condition of licensing junior fell races next year.

Thank you for your support.