By David Melly
August 23, 2023
Three was the magic number for champions last night in Budapest.
The great Faith Kipyegon of Kenya won her third World title (fifth gold overall, counting the Olympics) in the women’s 1500m in a masterclass of control, leading the race from gun to tape and leaving the rest of the world’s best middle-distance runners in her dust with a 3:54.87 victory.
For the third year in a row, Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali picked up a gold medal in the men’s steeplechase, this time winning in 8:03.53. This must be incredible frustrating for his Ethiopian rival, Lamecha Girma, who, despite being in the shape of his life and setting the world record earlier this summer, had to settle for silver for the fourth global championship in a row.
And although she may be a little disappointed with silver herself, U.S. discus champ Valarie Allman picked up her third medal in three years, rounding out a collection that includes a World bronze in Eugene and Olympic gold in Tokyo.
The three straight years of championships (after the Tokyo Olympics were pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic) clearly worked out well for athletes at the top of their respective games, and the biggest names are using the opportunity to rack up plenty of hardware. And with two more championships in a row after this, lucky number three may become five.
Today’s action will be a chance for the likes of Femke Bol, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and Katie Moon to add to their already-large medal collections, and many of the 100-meter stars come back for more in the first round of the 200m. You won’t want to miss it.
Join us LIVE on the CITIUS MAG YouTube at 9am E.T. for the Worlds Live Show featuring all interviews with all the biggest athletes, coaches, and media personalities of Budapest 23 and 4:00pm E.T. for the daily Post-Race Show featuring Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber, David McCarthy, Jasmine Todd, and Katelyn Hutchison unpacking all the action. You can also catch up on Day 4’s Live from Worlds (Part 2) featuring 100-meter finalist Brittany Brown, heptathlete Chari Hawkins, and the Backstraight Boys if you missed it yesterday! Plus, you can check out the video we made with former NCAA champ Joe Fahnbulleh before his 200-meter prelim tomorrow.
And you can catch up on CHAMPS CHATS below with the CITIUS team to hear our recaps, analysis, and breakdowns of Day 4 below, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What to Watch on Day 5
Finals: Women’s Pole Vault, Men’s 1500m, Women’s 400m, Men’s 400m Hurdles
Jakob Ingebrigtsen has accomplished many impressive things in his relatively short career (he’s still only 22 years old), but while he’s inarguably the best 1500-meter runner in the world right now and the reigning Olympic champion, the World gold medal has, so far, eluded him. Tonight we see if that changes or if someone like Yared Nuguse can upset him.
With the reigning Olympic champ and World champ taken out of the competition by injuries (Steven Gardiner in the semifinal and Michael Norman before the competition began), the men’s 400m is wide open. Will Wayde Van Niekerk reclaim his title from 2017 or will someone else beat him to it?
We’ll also see four Americans in the final of the women’s pole vault, the first round of the women’s steeplechase, and a bunch of distance runners from the 10,000m and the 1500m doubling back to the heats of the 5000m.
In the morning, we get to see the first rounds of the men’s and women’s 200 meters. Shericka Jackson will be out for revenge after taking silver in the 100m, but she’ll have to go through Americans Gabby Thomas, and of course, Sha’Carri Richardson. Noah Lyles should be favored to claim his second gold of the week, but he’s never tried the double before at Worlds. We’ll see how tired - or fresh - everyone looks in the preliminary heats.
Last but not least, we’ll finally get to watch Athing Mu’s quest to defend her title in the women’s 800m kick off with the first round of racing. Will she look rusty or rested as she races only her second 800m of the year? Time to find out!
Johnny Zhang/@jzsnapz
Race of the Day: Women’s 1500 Meters
At some point, we’ll run out of praise to heap on one of the all-time titans of the sport. But today is not that day.
Faith Kipyegon is the two-time Olympic champ, the three-time World champ, and the world record holder at 1500m, 1 mile, and 5000m. She’s been one of the best middle-distance runners in the world for nearly a decade and she still finds ways to improve.
It almost seemed as if she were trying to give her competitors a fighting chance in this one, leading the field through three laps at a relatively pedestrian pace until the final 400m when she closed in 57 seconds. But no one, not even 2019 champ Sifan Hassan, could dethrone the queen, and the negative-split race will only help Kipyegon this afternoon as, for the first time in her career, she begins her pursuit a gold medal in the 5000m as well.
It seems as if there’s little left for Kipyegon to achieve in her specialty event, but at 29 years old, she may as well go for her third straight Olympic title in Paris next year. Her dominance has arguably made the event boring on a championship level, but her speed has undeniably elevated the sport for everyone else: eight women broke 4 minutes in the final, and Ciara Mageean set a personal best and Irish national record of 3:56.61 in 4th place. Until she moves on to other events or someone else becomes a sub-3:50 runner, this period in track and field history will be forever known as The Faith Kipyegon Era.
Johnny Zhang/@jzsnapz
Athlete of the Day: Laulauga Tausaga-Collins
The theme of Laulauga “Lagi” Tausaga-Collins’s summer has been coming up big when it counts most.
First, it was her final-round throw at USAs, where she threw 65.46m to set a personal best by almost a full meter to qualify for her second World Championship in as many years. She needed a big throw to both make Team USA and hit the World qualifying standard, and she did just that.
Her teammate Valarie Allman, the reigning Olympic champion, was the favorite headed into last night’s final, and through four rounds she had the three longest throws of the competition. Tausaga-Collins got a small PB in round 3 with a 65.56m throw, but it wasn’t until the fifth round when she really found her groove. She launched a monster 69.49m bomb, a personal best of 4 meters, to overtake Allman and followed that up with the second farthest throw of her career, 68.36m, in the sixth.
When all was said and done, it was a U.S. 1-2 and Tausaga-Collins, whose previous best finish on the big stage was 12th, is your World champion.
Johnny Zhang/@jzsnapz
Photo of the Day
Gianmarco Tamberi celebrates his victory in the men’s high jump with a large contingent of Italian fans, captured by Justin Britton.
Social Moment to Remember
A well-deserved shoutout to our very own Kyle Merber for representing CITIUS and ASICS in the media 800m yesterday. His negative-split 1:57.20 was good for third place overall- not so bad for a washed-up dad!
Report from the Mixed Zone
Geordie Beamish talks about his foray into the steeplechase, culminating with a 5th place finish in last night’s final.
CITIUS MAG's coverage of the 2023 World Athletics Championships is powered by ASICS. You can follow the action on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube and check out ASICS on Instagram or their website.
David Melly
David began contributing to CITIUS in 2018, and quickly cemented himself as an integral part of the team thanks to his quick wit, hot takes, undying love for the sport and willingness to get yelled at online.
