What to Watch on Day 3

Timetable | Streaming Info

Finals: Men’s Triple Jump, Men’s Discus, Men’s 110m Hurdles, Women’s 100m

Only one session in Budapest’s National Athletics Centre stadium today, with the qualification of the women’s pole vault kicking off at 12:40pm E.T. Take a “long lunch” if you have work or skip your afternoon classes, because you’ll want to catch every minute of the action ending with the final of the women’s 100m, where we finally get to see a clash of titans as Sha’Carri Richardson, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Marie-Josee Ta Lou, Shericka Jackson, Julien Alfred, and more go head-to-head.

We’ll also get a shot at a U.S. sweep (knock on wood!) in the men’s 110-meter hurdles as Grant Holloway and the gang look to rack up the team’s medal count. Speaking of hurdles, we get the first round of the women’s 400m hurdles as well as the semifinal of the men, featuring big names like Femke Bol out for revenge and Rai Benjamin trying to turn silver into gold. Plus plenty of field action as youngster Jaydon Hibbert looks to pick up a senior medal in the triple jump and longtime discus rivals Kristjan Ceh and Daniel Stahl do battle once again.

Race of the Day: Men’s 100m

Headed into Budapest, the close observers of international sprinting were all focused on hyping up the clash of titans in the women’s 100 meters, but the men’s 100m delivered its own share of drama and excitement over the first two days of the championships.

Reigning World and Olympic champions Fred Kerley and Marcell Jacobs both failed to advance out of the semifinals, and no one had distinguished himself as the clear favorite headed into the final race of the evening. In the end, 200m World champion Noah Lyles was able to improve his starting technique enough to be close to the competition when he unleashed his lethal top-end speed over the final 40 meters of the race, and the charismatic star picked up the victory, a new PB, and a chance at a golden double with his 9.83 performance.

Behind him, it took a while to sort out the rest of the podium as three men were credited with 9.88s, and when it came down to the thousandths, up-and-coming Botswanan star Letsile Tebogo ended up with the silver medal, his first at a senior World Championship. Veteran Brit Zharnel Hughes, who’s having the best year of his long career in 2023, picked up his first individual global medal with a bronze. And for the second year in a row, Jamaican Oblique Seville, who looked phenomenal in the semifinal, ended up in the dreaded 4th position, this time by only 0.003 seconds.

Headed into the 4×100m relay and looking ahead to next year, Kerley and 2019 champ Christian Coleman will surely be on the warpath as they look to rebound from this setback. It makes for fascinating storylines to have so many big names so close together… although if Lyles keeps improving his mastery of the shorter distances, they might not be close much longer.

Athlete of the Day: Joshua Cheptegei

After dealing with calf and hamstring injuries toward the end of 2022, Olympic 5000m champ Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda was looking decidedly beatable for the first few months of this year. In fact, headed into last night he hadn’t won a single race all year, although his 2023 campaign did include a bronze medal at the World XC Championships in February and a 12:41.61 5000m at the Lausanne Diamond League meet. But the self-styled “Silverback Gorilla” quickly reminded everyone why he has world records at 5,000m and 10,000m and a growing collection of World/Olympic medals, most of them gold.

After a 14:22 first 5k in 90+ degree temperatures, things really got going in the last mile of the race, and Cheptegei could not be beaten in the final 400m thanks to his 53.45 closing speed en route to a 27:51.42. The best distance runners in the world, including Olympic 10,000m champ Selemon Barega, couldn’t touch the Ugandan great, and for the third World championships in a row he came out with gold. Cheptegei, still only 26 years old, is amassing a resume to rival Mo Farah’s or Kenenisa Bekele’s, and if he stays healthy headed into Paris next year, he’s going to be very, very hard to beat.

Photo of the Day: This Is Sportsmanship

Johnny Zhang captured a sweet moment of congratulations between heptathlon World champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson and runner-up Anna Hall. Johnson-Thompson had to stay within 3 seconds of Hall in the final event of the competition, the 800m, to claim the gold medal and set a lifetime best of 2:05.63 to do it.

Social Moment to Remember

Reigning 400m hurdles bronze medalist Trevor Bassitt shouts out his wife (and CITIUS MAG graphics guru!) Harlie on NBC.