By David Melly
July 30, 2025
All around the world, it’s nationals weekend, with countries from Bulgaria to Great Britain holding their selection events for the 2025 World Athletics Championships. But this newsletter is written in the U.S. of A., baby—and more importantly, no other nationals in the world features a staggering thirteen reigning World/Olympic champs all competing in the same place at the same time.
USAs is consistently the best non-global championship meet in the world each year. NCAAs may be a better entertainment product, and the Prefontaine Classic has the numbers to claim best one-day event status, but the four-day version of the USATF Outdoor Championships truly brings the best of both worlds when it comes to talent, depth, and a densely-packed schedule.
The CITIUS MAG team is churning out detailed previews for every event in your inboxes and on the site (safe to say we’re the only media game in town with a 5,000-word preview for just the throws), but if you don’t have time for all that reading or you’re more of a vibes-based fan, we’ve boiled things down to the burning questions on everyone’s mind heading into the weekend.
Who’s running what and why?
Obviously, that’s a pretty basic question—but the answer isn’t as straightforward as one might think. Unlike the Olympics, reigning World champions get a bye into Tokyo, so the lucky few gold medalists (okay, not so few in the U.S., and not so lucky in general) get to play around with their championship schedule. While they’ve entered both events, it’s possible that 100m champs Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson run only the 200m—a no-brainer for Lyles as he races his way back to sharpness, but an uphill battle for Sha’Carri as she faces Olympic champ Gabby Thomas, bronze medalist Brittany Brown, and three other women who’ve run under 22 seconds this year.
As the three-time World champ, Grant Holloway can run as many or as few 110m hurdles races as he wants. And he skipped the final in both 2022 and 2023, so don’t put all your chips on Holloway to get through all three rounds. At least he’s entered: World champ Ryan Crouser has committed to defending his title in Tokyo, but is skipping USAs entirely as he works his way back from an early-season injury.
The women’s 5000m will be made much more interesting by the folks who’ve gone all-in, namely Josette Andrews, Shelby Houlihan, and Alicia Monson. Monson is a real wild card as she’s only run one race, a 15:01.63 two weeks ago, since undergoing surgery in 2024. But as Andrews and Houlihan have both prioritized the 5000m over the 1500m, they’ll be racing on fresher legs than the Olympian trio of Elise Cranny, Karissa Schweizer, and Weini Kelati doubling back from the 10,000m. On the men’s 5000m side, the favorites are nearly all double-entered— Grant Fisher, Nico Young, Graham Blanks, and Cole Hocker, the latter of whom is coming back from the 1500m rather than the 10,000m. But if Abdi Nur was dogging his injury return (a 13:34 B-heat win at the same meet as Monson) he’ll be fresh and flying under the radar.
Just how low can Sydney go?
Guess who’s not doubling: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The world record holder and three-time World/Olympic champ over 400m hurdles is only running the flat 400m, looking to improve upon her performance from 2023 when she won the U.S. title in 48.74, just 0.04 seconds off Sanya Richards-Ross’s American record. McLaughlin-Levrone doesn’t have a bye in to Tokyo in any event, so it’s clear she’s not messing around. She certainly deserves kudos for taking the more difficult route to gold, one that necessarily goes through Olympic champ Marileidy Paulino.
McLaughlin-Levrone has raced three 400ms this year but her season’s best is “only” 49.43. She’s certainly capable of the American record—whether it happens this weekend or in Tokyo is another question. And although SML has to be considered the heavy favorite given her consistency and high ceiling, two other Americans—NCAA outdoor champ Aaliyah Butler and NCAA indoor champ Bella Whittaker—have run faster than her so far this season.
Will the 1500s be the best battles of the meet?
The Lap Count’s origins (and readership) has always had a distinctly middle-distance bent, so we may be a little biased, but the men’s and women’s 1500ms are truly stacked and ought to be thrillingly close.
Last year, the women’s final produced an astonishing eight finishers under four minutes, led by Nikki Hiltz picking up their fourth straight U.S. 1500m title (counting indoors) in 3:55.33. You’ve gotta feel for Sinclaire Johnson, who ran 3:56.75 and finished fourth—that’s truly insane. That time made her the sixth fastest American in history but three of those six finished ahead of her in the race.
Heading into the weekend, Johnson and Hiltz are the marquee names on a collision course. Hiltz extended their indoor/outdoor streak to five with a national title indoors, and was the top American finisher at the Prefontaine Classic one spot ahead of Johnson. Then last week, Johnson broke Hiltz’s American record in the mile, running 4:16.32 in London. And who was the last U.S. 1500m champion not named Nikki Hiltz? Sinclaire Johnson in 2022.
While they appear to be great chums off the track (Hiltz commented “Wouldn’t want my record to be broken by anyone else❤️🔥👏” after London), their rivalry will reach fierce new heights when they return to Hayward. And the battle for the third spot may be just as thrilling—former teammates Heather MacLean and Emily MacKay, 2021 and 2024 Olympians in the event, respectively, will be vying for a place on the team alongside MacLean’s new training partner Helen Schlachtenhaufen.
Not to be outdone, the men’s race is also shaping up to be a banger. Olympic medalists Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse will match up for the seventh time this season (six Grand Slam 800m/1500ms plus the Bowerman Mile), and while Nuguse is 5-2 across those races, Hocker is the reigning national and Olympic champion for a reason. But Nuguse won the title in 2023, so this year’s edition is no foregone conclusion.
Olympic fifth-placer Hobbs Kessler was left out of the doubling section earlier because he isn’t, opting instead to focus on just the longer event after making the team in both the 800m and 1500m last year. He hasn’t quite shown off his 2024 form yet this year, but a singular focus and his preexisting prodigious talent put him in a good spot. And speaking of prodigious talent, Ethan Strand made 3:48 look absurdly easy out of the “International Mile” heat at Pre, and even though the 22-year-old just turned pro a few weeks ago, he made the final in North Carolina blue last year so is no stranger to a big stage. But he’ll have to turn the tables back around on collegiate rival Nathan Green, who hasn’t run quite as fast as his competition (yet) but is lethal in a championship setting. It’s tempting to call this a battle of youth vs experience, but Nuguse is the old man of the group at only 26.
What the heck is going on in the women’s 800m?
When this newsletter was going to press last week, we had to draft multiple versions of the Athing Mu-Nikolayev entry status, as the increasingly-inscrutable Olympic champion did not appear on the entry list for the women’s 800m until mere hours before the deadline. But she is running after all—how fast, and how many races, remains to be seen. On one hand, Mu-Nikolayev is the American record holder with a 1:54.97 PB; on the other, she’s only got a 2:00.42 season’s best to her name and faded badly in that race, moving from second to sixth in the final lap. It would be something of a surprise to see her flame out in the first round given her talent, but also would be unexpected for her to magically return to her 2022 form and handily dispatch the field. Her return to racing after falling in last year’s final will be one of the most intriguing plotlines of the entire meet and frankly… we don’t know quite what to expect.
She’s not the only X factor in the event, either. Four-time national champ Ajee’ Wilson also had a rough 2024 and is currently unsponsored after a decade or so in adidas, but she’s started to look like herself again this season, with a 1:58.76 season’s best and three wins in her last four races. Raevyn Rogers, Wilson and Mu-Nikolayev’s teammate in Tokyo, has also looked the best she’s looked in a while recently, running 1:58.49 for top American honors (albeit finishing sixth) at Pre.
On the other end of the spectrum, the current U.S. leader is 21-year-old Addy Wiley at 1:57.43, but Wiley has never made a team on the track and didn’t make the final of the 800m last year. The winner of that final, two-time defending champ Nia Akins, hasn’t quite been up to her usual standard of excellence outdoors, but she’s only a few months removed from winning the U.S. indoor title in the event. So what happens in this one is really anyone’s guess.
Is the easiest way to watch… flying to Eugene?
It’s famously expensive and onerous to travel to the American mecca of track and field… but this year, “expensive and onerous” could also describe simply getting the meet to play on your screen. Two of the four days of competition will only be streamed on USATF.TV, which requires a $12.99 monthly subscription, and Saturday and Sunday will feature a smorgasbord of USATF.TV, NBC, and Peacock coverage.
It’s hard enough to talk your friends, let alone the barkeep at the local watering hole, to put professional track and field on TV, and this schedule doesn’t make it any easier. Peacock is not a perfect service by any means (it also requires a subscription and its algorithm seems determined not to learn anything about its users), but when we’re searching for the remote in between couch cushions and untangling a mass of HDMI cables over the next four evenings, we’ll surely be missing the days when you could watch one meet on one platform.
The first year post-Olympics is always a time of change: top athletes changing sponsors and events, new talent coming up through the system, and beloved veterans riding off into the sunset. Change brings uncertainty, and uncertainty makes for very entertaining sports-viewing. Regardless of who you’re rooting for and how you jerry-rig your television, this year’s USAs is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing in recent memory.
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.
