By David Melly
August 26, 2023
The 200 meters is arguably the most beautiful event in track and field.
The 100m gets all the glory in the sprints, with the excitement and simplicity of a race to become World’s Fastest. But even the best athletes in the world spend so much of the race accelerating to top speed that you only get a few quick seconds of runners at their fastest. Watching a truly great 200m runner come off the turn in full flight, their stride opened up and maintaining their top speed as long as possible, is something special.
And two of the best to ever do it are Noah Lyles and Shericka Jackson. Normally, champions repeating isn’t the most thrilling outcome, but both the men’s and women’s 200m champion made sure to put on a show. Lyles completed the 100m-200m double with his 19.52 win, the first man to win double gold since a little guy named Usain Bolt in 2016. And Jackson set a personal best and championship record of 21.41, once again closing in on Florence Griffith-Joyner’s epic world record. Jackson now has the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th fastest 200ms ever run, and it seems like she’s one fast track and favorable tailwind away from finally taking down 21.34.
Behind the champs, American Sha’Carri Richardson and Letsile Tebogo of Botswana also picked up their second medals of the week with a pair of bronzes. Richardson has truly put the doubters to sleep with her performance this week, cruising through 6 rounds of running with two personal bests and two medals. And that’s still with the 4×100m final to come!
Earlier in the evening, the medalists’ teammates did the job of getting their teams to the final round of the 4×100m, with the U.S. and Jamaica advancing teams on both sides along with some strong competitors - Italy and Japan on the men’s side and Great Britain and the Ivory Coast on the women’s.
World/Olympic champ Athing Mu survived a scare in her semifinal of the women’s 800m after getting tripped up early in the second lap. She had to work hard to get back into qualifying position, but she’s safely through to the final as she looks to defend her title. And Day 1 of the decathlon went great for NCAA champ Leo Neugebauer of Germany, who set PBs in the shot put and the long jump and currently leads the competition with 4,640 points (30 points ahead of second).
Spend all day with us today! Join us LIVE on the CITIUS MAG YouTube at 7:30am 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, Mitch Dyer, Jasmine Todd, and David Melly unpacking all the action.
Join us in a few short minutes for a World Championships Marathon Watch Party live on YouTube with the CITIUS crew. If you’ve joined us for the Boston Marathon in the past, you know the deal: throw the race on television and pull us up on YouTube for alternate commentary, analysis, and good old-fashioned banter to spice up your viewing experience. The marathon and our live show go off at 6:45am local which is 12:45am E.T., and we’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow (or late tonight, depending on your time zone) with the men’s marathon as well.
You can also catch up on Day 7’s Live from Worlds featuring a stacked lineup: World 1500m champ Josh Kerr, 3x hurdles World champion Grant Holloway, heptathlon silver medalist Anna Hall, 400m hurdle medalists Rai Benjamin & Trevor Bassitt, and discus World champ Lagi Tausaga-Collins.
And you can catch up on CHAMPS CHATS below with the CITIUS team to hear our recaps, analysis, and breakdowns of Day 7 below, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What to Watch on Day 8
Finals: Women’s Marathon, Decathlon, Women’s Shot Put, Men’s 800m, Women’s 5000m, Men’s & Women’s 4×100ms
We’ve got our first marathon of the World championships bright and early (or nice and late, depending on where you live) featuring a stacked Ethiopian lineup and American Keira D’Amato gunning for a medal. Then, once you’ve had a few hours to nap or caffeinate, we’ve got the second day of the tight men’s decathlon competition with the title up for grabs after reigning champ Kevin Mayer withdrew yesterday.
The men’s 800m final is also wide open and will make for wild and crazy racing. The women’s 5000m has a few heavy favorites, including 10,000m World champ Gudaf Tsegay and 1500m champ Faith Kipyegon going head to head for their second golds. And the evening wraps up with a couple of thrilling relays as the men’s and women’s 4×100m pits the greatest sprinters in the world against each other and the U.S. looks to increase its lead in the medal table.
It’s officially the weekend, so no need to cram events in during the workday - clear your schedule, invite some friends over, and enjoy the best that track and field has to offer!
Johnny Zhang/@jzsnapz
Race of the Day: Women’s 200m
Headed into the final of the 200m, it seemed like it would be a tight race between Jamaican Shericka Jackson and American Gabby Thomas, the two fastest runners in the world in the event by a good margin this year. But you can’t discount the fuel added to Jackson’s fire after she was forced to settle with silver in the 100m final, and it was clear she was a woman on a mission in every round of the 200m, stoically taking care of business to get the job done.
In the end, the race wasn’t altogether close. While Thomas did a fantastic job to claim silver from an outside lane in 21.81, finding sweet redemption after missing the 2022 championship season with an injury, Jackson was in control of the race from every step and built up a lead that couldn’t be overcome. For the second year in a row, her biggest competitor has been the record book, as the 21.34 mark set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988 gets closer and closer.
It’s highly likely that the majority of the 8 women from the 200m final will be back in action on their country’s 4×100m, with a few more medals to be allotted to this busy crew. If you’re looking for underdogs to root for, both Marie-Josee Ta Lou and Dina Asher-Smith made the finals of the 100m and 200m but left empty-handed, so cheer hard for the Ivory Coast and Great Britain teams and their busy stars as they head into yet another World final.
Justin Britton/@JustinBritton
Athlete of the Day: Yulimar Rojas
Yulimar Rojas is usually making headlines for her gravity-defying leaps and years-long assault on the record books, as the world record holder in the triple jump indoors and out. She wins at even the highest levels by enormous margins, 50 or 60 centimeters at times between her in second place.
But last night she got the crowd going for a very different reason: she showed her ability to perform even on a rare off night. Through three jumps, she sat in 8th place and had to wait on her competitors’ attempts to see if she would even make the final round of the competition, and until her final round, she was well short of the medals and Ukranian Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk’s 15.00m lead.
But champions are champions for a reason. On her final jump of the competition, Rojas put it together enough to keep her streak alive. Her 15.08m final attempt was well short of her best attempts and it was clear that something was off throughout the evening, but she still did what she had to do to get the job done. And now the 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022 champ is once again golden in 2023.
Justin Britton/@JustinBritton
Photo of the Day
Athing Mu was understandably not super happy after getting tripped up in the semifinal of the women’s 800m, but she has a chance to get her revenge in Sunday’s final. Captured by Johnny Zhang.
Report from the Mixed Zone
The men’s 200m medalists speak to the media after the 400m finals led by double World champ Noah Lyles.
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.
