John Van Beuren Regained the Scottish Heavy Athletics World Championship at the Hundred and Sixtieth Pleasanton Games
The Caledonian Club of San Francisco staged the world championship and the fiftieth United States Invitational over the Labor Day weekend.
The 160th Scottish Highland Gathering and Games were held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, California, on 5 and 6 September 2026. The Caledonian Club of San Francisco, which has run the event since 1866, expected more than 35,000 visitors.
The weekend hosted the 2026 Men's Scottish Heavy Athletics World Championships alongside the fiftieth United States Invitational Heavy Athletic Championships, sponsored by Rogue Fitness.
John Van Beuren won the world championship, regaining a title he had previously held in 2022 and 2023 and becoming a three-time world champion.
Beyond the heavy events, the programme included more than 200 solo pipers and drummers, Highland dancing championships, sheepdog trials, archery, birds of prey displays, a kilted mile and a clan village housing fifty-four clans. The club's first chieftain, Alex J. Cameron-Sinclair, has said there are very few events left in America that can trace their roots back 160 years.