For the most part, it’s been a topsy-turvy World Championships so far. This has been the meet for upsets and underdogs, where favorite status seems to melt away entirely in the heat and humidity of Tokyo.

But some athletes are simply so great they cannot be denied under any circumstances. Beatrice Chebet and Faith Kipyegon are two of those athletes. In 2023, Kipyegon took double gold in the 1500m and 5000m, with the latter coming two spots ahead of Chebet, who only two years ago was still coming into her own as a true superstar. Last summer, Chebet and Kipyegon went 1-2 in the event, with the younger Kenyan’s blistering speed too much for even the 1500m world record holder. Again in Tokyo, it was the Beatrice and Faith Show, with the best distance runners of all time outclassing the field in a slow race ending in a blistering kick.

For once, the predicted outcome came to fruition, as Chebet and Kipyegon replicated their Paris dominance in a race whose winning time, 14:54.36, was nearly a full minute behind the world record. Behind them, Nadia Battocletti rounded out an incredible championship season with her second medal of the week, taking bronze ahead of American Shelby Houlihan in fourth.

Race Of The Day: Men’s 800m

Boiling this race down to “the Paris podium repeats itself” belies just how much of a thriller it was. Emmanuel Wanyonyi took the field through 400m in 49.26, but it was no two man race: Right on Marco Arop’s heels were three other athletes coming through sub-50.

The 800m final featured two rising stars who’ve quickly made international names for themselves: Irishman Cian McPhillips and Brit Max Burgin, both 23 years old, who finished fourth and sixth. Burgin started making true waves a few months earlier, with top-three finishes at three Diamond Leagues this season. But McPhillips announced his presence in the last few days, lowering his PB an enormous 2.04 seconds over two rounds of racing and breaking the Irish national record twice, ultimately landing at 1:42.15 just 0.2 seconds out of the medals.

Wanyonyi is known first and foremost for his blazing speed and prodigious talent — while he first started making waves internationally with his fourth place finish at Worlds in 2022, it’s worth noting that he’s two years younger than McPhillips and Burgin and now a three-time medalist at 21 years old. But he also won the tactical war today, as a huge reason he was able to hang onto gold by 0.04 seconds is by holding the inside line the whole way down the straightaway, not drifting outward and letting anyone through in lane 1 as leaders so often do. As a result, everyone around and behind him had to work harder for position, and Wanyonyi came away with his second global gold but first World title.

At an ancient 27 years old, Arop is the old man of the group, so we’re going to be getting a lot more of these eight men matching up in the years to come. The more athletes get comfortable running in the 1:41s, the louder discussion of David Rudisha’s epic world record will become, but that’s missing the point: even when the favorites come out on top, the men’s 800m is absolutely loaded and hardly boring.

Athlete Of The Day: Anna Hall

The heptathlon is a famously grueling event, one where a single slip-up can make two days of hard work go to waste. Simply getting through seven different events in one piece is half the battle; that’s why heptathletes famously all do victory laps after the competition concludes, not just the medalists.

Somehow, Anna Hall makes it look easy. The 24-year-old completed her medal set with a gold in Tokyo, following up a bronze in Eugene and a silver in Budapest to finally top the podium. Hall won the shot put and the 800m, two very different events, and finished in the top four of five disciplines in an impressive display of versatility. She ended up 164 points up on Kate O’Connor in second, who had an epic performance of her own as she shattered the Irish national record to win her nation’s first medal in the event.

That’s not to say that Hall has never had to overcome adversity, as she underwent knee surgery last winter and still returned for a fifth-place finish at the Paris Olympics. Despite not facing Nafi Thiam head-to-head on day 2 after the Belgian’s withdrawal, but Hall’s 6,888-point winning total was still higher than Thiam’s 2024 Olympic gold and Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s 2023 World title.

Hall wraps up a season that saw her win her third straight U.S. title and clear 7,000 points for the first time on a true high, but still with room for improvement. Her high jump and long jump efforts were nowhere near her best today, a reminder that she still has huge growth potential in the future as she looks forward to a title defense in 2028 and a U.S.-hosted Olympics in 2028. Surely, the best is still yet to come.

Social Moment Of The Day

It appears the Chris Bailey, himself a member of the Team USA 4×400m pool, found out the news of the team’s run-off via our Instagram.

Photo Of The Day

This chaotic and controversial handoff during the men’s 4×400m prelims led to a disqualification for Zambia and a re-run scheduled for the U.S. and Kenya for the last spot in the final.