Japan’s National Stadium – home to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 – roars into life from Saturday for the biennial World Athletics Championships, which run 13–21 September. It will be a milestone for Worlds, marking the 20th time the event has been held since the inaugural championships in Helsinki in 1983. Somewhat surprisingly, 2025 is the first time ever that the competition has also marked the culmination of the outoor track and field season.

It will be the first time Tokyo has hosted since it held the third World Championships in 1991. And with 2,000 athletes from 200 teams competing across 49 events – for 147 medals and a total prize pool of US$8.5m – it’s sure to be a gripping nine days.

Let’s dive in.

AUSTRALIA, YOUNG AND FAST

Australia is in a new golden age for athletics. We’re sending a record 84 competitors (see below: the squad began at 88) to Worlds. Of these, 21 are aged 21 or under. Twenty-seven athletes will make their world-stage debuts. Just think what that means for the next few years.

In this 21-and-under club, you’ll find Australia’s newest household name, Gout Gout – but you should also look out for his fellow sprinters Torrie Lewis and Caleb Law.

In middle distance, our young guns include Cameron Myers, Claudia Hollingsworth and Peyton Craig. Myers holds the Aussie mile record and has the junior indoor world records for the 1,500m and mile. Hollingsworth is the national and area 800m record holder (1:57.67), while Craig won 800m gold in the Oceania champs and silver at the U20 Worlds last year.

Four Australians we won’t now see are emerging sprint star Lachlan Kennedy, who ran a sub-10-second 100m in May; reigning Olympic pole vault champion Nina Kennedy; race walker Jemima Montag, a silver medallist at Budapest in 2023; and – devastatingly for Aussie long-distance fans – national marathon record holder Andy Buchanan. These athletes have withdrawn due to injuries.

MEN’S 100M AND 200M

With key competitors appearing on both starting lines, let’s round up the men’s 100m and 200m events together.

Starting with Australia, let's hear it for Gout Gout. The 17-year-old high schooler and national record holder (20.02 seconds) makes his senior debut in the 200m. If he makes it to the final he’ll have achieved something that even his hero Usain Bolt couldn’t at the same age. He won’t race the 100m, where his best legal time is 10.17, as he didn’t line up for the qualifying event at nationals in April.

Then there’s the epic rivalry between Jamaican Kishane Thompson and the USA’s Noah Lyles. Thompson’s season’s best of 9.75 is the best 100m time in a decade. Lyles started his season late due to injury, but he’s the reigning Olympic and world champion in 100m. And no-one should count out the pair’s teammates Oblique Seville (JAM) and Kenny Bednarek (USA). By the way, the beef between Bednarek and Lyles that spilled over from a side-eye (Lyles) and shoving (Bednarek) incident at the US nationals has apparently been put to bed, but we can still expect intense internecine competition here.

Thompson and Lyles will both also line up in the 200m, where Lyles is going for the sprint double he achieved at Budapest 2023 but couldn’t pull off in Paris last year. He’s chasing a fourth consecutive world title in this event, something only Usain Bolt has achieved. At Paris, Lyles had to settle for bronze, behind Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo and his own teammate Bednarek. Both men will be looking to spoil Lyles’ bid for the history books in Tokyo.

100m: Preliminary round 11:30am Sat 13 Sep, Heats 8:35pm Sat 13 Sep, Semi-final 8:45pm Sun 14 Sep, Final 10:20pm Sun 14 Sep (all times Japan Standard Time)

200m: Heats 8:15pm Wed 17 Sep, Semi-final 9:02pm Thu 18 Sep, Final 10:06pm Fri 19 Sep (all times JST)

WOMEN’S 100M AND 200M

Turning to the women’s 100m and 200m, it’s all about the head-to-head between St Lucia’s Julien Alfred and the American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden.

Across the shorter distance, Alfred is looking to add the world championship to her Paris Olympics gold medal – and her season started strong with Diamond League wins in Oslo and Stockholm. But at the ninth DL meet, early July’s Prefontaine Classic in Eugene – in the only direct faceoff between the pair this year – Jefferson-Wooden prevailed with a nailbiting 10.75 over Alfred’s 10.77. The American also clocked the year’s only sub-10.7 when she ran 10.65 to win the US championships in early August.

Perennial fan favourite Sha’Carri Richardson (USA) is the reigning world champion but hasn’t had an amazing year so far. Still, never rule her out. And regardless of where she places, five-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica deserves a standing ovation as she runs her final 100m sprint.

In the 200m, it’s again Alfred versus MJW, with defending champion Shericka Jackson looking for an upset to match Allyson Felix's record of three world 200m titles. US sprinter Gabby Thomas, who held Alfred to silver at the Paris Olypmics, will not be in Tokyo due to an Achilles injury. Alfred has the fastest time of the season (21.71 in London in July), and MJW is better known as a 100m runner, though she did just clock a 21.84 PB at the US national champs.

If you wanted to place bets, it might be MJW in the 100m and Alfred in the 200m. But don’t bet the house – either event could go any which way.

100m: Heats 6:55pm Sat 13 Sep, Semi-final 8:20pm Sun 14 Sep, Final 10:13pm Sun 14 Sep (all times Japan Standard Time)

200m: Heats 7:30pm Wed 17 Sep, Semi-final 9:24pm Thu 18 Sep, Final 10:22pm Fri 19 Sep (all times JST)

WHERE’S JAKOB?

Not a “what to watch” but a “whom to watch”. Everyone’s favourite trash-talking Norwegian, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, has not raced outdoors at all this season due to an Achilles injury. “I have taken the trip down to the injury cellar several times this spring. It has been pitch dark there,” he told Norwegian TV a couple of weeks ago. (Really hoping “injury cellar” becomes a new metaphor to add to the “pain cave” lexicon.)

But he has landed in Tokyo and is listed to start in the 1500m and 5000m events. Putting aside his troubled season, he’s the defending 5000m champion, comes off back-to-back European and World indoors 1500m and 3000m double wins in March and is returning to the site of his 2021 1500m Olympic victory. Interestingly, he’s never won gold over 1500m at an outdoor World Championships.

Ingebrigtsen admits he’s missed the competition these past few months but says he’s been pushing himself with cross-training such as aqua jogging. He says he’s been competing against his own limits of endurance, heart rate and exhaustion.

“I'm definitely racing against the clock to make the World Championships but, at the same time, if I'm on the start line, of course I'm going try to win and believe that I can win,” he told the world’s media on a recent video call.

We’ll find out if he managed to beat the clock when the 1500m heats kick off this Sunday 14 September. The 5000m, and Ingebrigtsen’s involvement or otherwise, will unfold on the final day, Sunday 21 September, at 7:47pm local time.

WOMEN’S 800M

British superstar Keely Hodgkinson went from winning 800m gold at the most recent Olympics to being sidelined with a hamstring injury for more than a year. And then storming back with a world-leading 1:54.74 at the Silesia Diamond League meet in mid-August. She followed that up with another Diamond League win in Lausanne just four days later.

The UK is hoping to dominate the podium, with Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Hunter Bell – Hodgkinson’s training partner – making the 800m her sole focus. (Cynics might note Fatih Kipyegon’s lock on the 1500m as a tactical incentive here.)

Aussies will, of course, be rooting for our young national record holder Claudia Hollingsworth, along with Jessica Hull – the Olympic 1500m silver medallist will also be running in that event on Tuesday – and Abbey Caldwell. Kenya's reigning champion Mary Moraa, Ethiopia's Olympic silver medallist Tsige Duguma and Swiss athlete Audrey Werro are the other athletes to follow here, if you’re looking for someone to upset a likely Hodgkinson win.

Heats 7:55pm Thu 18 Sep, Semi-final 8:45pm Fri 19 Sep, Final 7:35pm Sun 21 Sep (all times JST)

MEN’S 1500M

The event many of us are waiting for, and newcomer Niels Laros of the Netherlands is the one to watch here. He’s only 20, but he’s had a remarkable season. Coming from an athletic family and having previously tried high jump, long jump and football, he’s only been with his coach, Tomasz Lewandowski, since 2022. Dangerously versatile, Laros is competitive from 800m to 5000m, with a mix of speed and stamina almost unheard of for his age. And he’s improved dramatically over the past year. From placing sixth in the 1500m at the Paris Olympics, he’s risen to the top with his Diamond League final win at Zurich just last month. His time of 3:29.20 is the new Dutch record and sits on Laros’ shelf beside his national titles in the indoor 3000m and the mile, the latter earned on Hayward Field with a thrilling photo-finish comeback that saw him pip Yared Naguse at the post.

So who can beat this new guy? It’s been a helluva season so far, and the Bowerman Mile we just mentioned was arguably the deepest ever run, setting records for the most men to run under 3:50 (13), 3:49 (11), and 3:48 (8) in a single race. Coming to Tokyo, we have a posse of bad hombres who have gone under 3:30 in the 1500m this year: experienced French runner Azeddine Habz, who posted the year’s best time of 3:27.49 to win the hotly contested Paris Diamond League meet, and defending world champion and Olympic silver medallist Josh Kerr, whose season’s best is 3:29.37. (Fun fact: no-one has successfully defended a 1500m World Championships title since Kenyan Asbel Kiprop backed up his 2013 Moscow gold with a 2015 win in Beijing.) Scotsman Kerr will be pushed on by fellow UK athletes George Mills (3:28.36 at Paris this year), 2022 world champion Jake Wightman, Neil Gourley and Elliot Giles.

All Australian eyes will be on a runner even younger than Laros: Cam Myers. The 19-year-old smashed his own U20 1500m national record by almost three seconds at the Ostrava Golden Spike in June, posting 3:29.80. Can the competition in Tokyo give him the boost of 0.39 seconds he needs to break Oliver Hoare’s 2023 national record of 3:29.41?

Speaking of Hoare, the 2022 Commonwealth Games champion was somewhat controversially overlooked for Worlds despite running the second fastest Australian time in the qualifying window, behind Myers. The selectors have instead filled the other available two 1500m spots with Adam Spencer and Jude Thomas.

The US contingent includes Olympic champion Cole Hocker and Hobbs Kessler. Unfortunately, Naguse – who just blitzed the Fifth Avenue Mile – won’t be in Tokyo; he failed to qualify at the US nationals in August.

There are at least three Kenyans to keep an eye on: 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot, Reynold Cheruiyot (no relation) and 18-year-old Phanuel Koech. Koech went 3:27.70 in June, while both Cheruiyots have also run under 3:30 this year.

And then there’s the question mark hanging over Jakob. See above.

Heats 9:35am Sun 14 Sep, Semi-final 9:30pm Mon 15 Sep, Final 10:20pm Wed 17 Sep (all times JST)

HOW TO CATCH THE ACTION

Australia: Nine and SBS UK: BBC USA: NBC and Peacock OTher territories: Check with your local broadcast networks or join World Athletics+ for free (selected content, and georestrictions may apply to livestreams)

Check World Athletics for the full schedule with times converted to your location.