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The Stapler Cup Finals 2026 begin: What the drivers can expect at the World Championship
World Forklift Driving Championships Start Next Thursday in Aschaffenburg
From October 22 to 24, 2026, the 21st Stapler Cup Finals will take place at the Linde MH Arena in Aschaffenburg. At the Forklift World Championship organized by the industrial truck manufacturer Linde Material Handling, forklift drivers from several countries will compete in individual and team competitions. In addition to the World Championships for women, men, and national teams, the Corporate Cup will also be held for company teams. The participants must prove their speed and precision in handling forklifts on newly designed courses.
23 Qualification Tournaments Decide Participation
Participants have qualified for this year's World Championships through a total of 23 qualification tournaments. Seventeen preliminary decisions took place in Germany and six more abroad. The drivers with the best results received starting places for the individual world championships for women and men. In the team competition, national teams from various countries will compete against each other. According to the organizer, these include Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, and Germany.
In the individual competitions, the reigning world champions Benjamin Danker from Neustadt an der Donau and Swetlana Lattermann from Buchholz will also compete. Both secured their respective titles last year. The German national team is also competing to defend their title. They won the team world championship in 2025 ahead of the Netherlands and Croatia.
First Dedicated Qualification Competition for Junior Drivers
A new development concerns the qualification of younger forklift drivers. At the inaugural Young Talents Qualifier in Heidelberg, participants aged 18 to 25 could qualify for the World Championships.
The three starting places went to Jan Pirsc from Ulm, Cedric Weingärtner from Pfaffen-Schwabenheim, and Lorenz Regler from Munich. Thus, an independent junior competition complements the existing qualification system.
Corporate Cup Opens the Competitions
The finals will kick off with the Corporate Cup on Thursday, October 22. In this competition, teams from various companies compete against each other. Participants include the defending champion ZF Friedrichshafen as well as a team from Linde Material Handling.
The competitions are scheduled to begin at 4 PM. After two competition rounds, the semifinals will follow from 7:45 PM. The final races and the award ceremony are scheduled for 8 PM. On Friday, October 23, the individual and team world championships start. The first round of the team competition begins at 11 AM, followed by the individual competitions at 12:45 PM. The second preliminary rounds are planned for the afternoon.
The third preliminary rounds will be held on Saturday, October 24. From 4:30 PM, the semifinal and final races of the team competition are planned. The decisions in the individual competitions will begin, according to the current schedule, at 5:45 PM. The award ceremony is set for 7:45 PM. Changes to the schedule are possible according to the organizer.
New Courses with Rolling and Hanging Obstacles
The sporting tasks have been fundamentally redesigned for this year's finals. According to Linde Material Handling, rolling and hanging obstacles will be used, among other things. The oversized steel seesaw, already known from previous competitions, is also part of the courses in several variants. The participants have to master different tasks with their forklifts, where both the required time and the accuracy of vehicle operation determine the outcome.
The specific tasks remain unknown until the day of the respective competition. Only during the briefing do the drivers receive information about which obstacles and requirements they can expect on the courses.
The competitions are held on parallel courses. Participants qualify for the semifinals over three preliminary rounds. The world championship titles are then awarded in the final runs on Saturday evening.
First Ever Non-Stop English-Language Livestream
The Stapler Cup Finals will be broadcast live on the Internet in 2026 as well. Interested parties can follow the competitions on the Stapler Cup channel on YouTube and on the sports platform Sporteurope.tv.
New is an additional, non-stop English-language livestream. The commentary will be provided by sports reporter Max Merrill. With this, the organizer expands the previous broadcasts with an independent English-language offering. The broadcasts begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday, at 11 a.m. on Friday, and at 12 p.m. on Saturday.
Free Entry and Supporting Program
The competitions can be watched in the Linde MH Arena with free entry. Parking spaces at the venue are also available free of charge. In addition to the sporting competitions, the organizer offers a children's area, table football, airbrush tattoos, a fan shop, and food stations. Musical entertainment is provided by Daniel Stenger.
During the event, the association Stapler Cup hilft organizes a raffle to benefit the project "Strengthen Foster Families. Give a Home." by the Aschaffenburg association One Day. The main prize is an electric mountain bike worth around 5,000 euros.
Stapler Cup held since 2005
The Stapler Cup was initially launched in 2005 as the German Championship in forklift driving. In 2008, the competition was expanded to include a company team championship, from which today's Corporate Cup emerged. Since 2015, there has been a separate competition for women. With its development into the Forklift World Championship in 2024, the event received its current international competition structure. Since 2021, the finals have been held in the Linde MH Arena in Aschaffenburg.
According to the organizer, nearly 45,000 registrations have been received since the Stapler Cup's inception. Several thousand spectators watch the competitions on-site each year. Additionally, according to the organizer, more than 70,000 viewers follow the live stream. For the year 2025, the organizer estimates the total media reach across all communication channels to be more than 145 million people worldwide.
Translated automatically from German.
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