Greetings from Tokyo! Barely a day and a half of competition has happened so far, and already it feels like there’s so much to process as the 2025 World Athletics Championships get underway.

Three finals are already in the books, all with fascinating — but different — outcomes. In the short history of the mixed-gender 4×400m, a great rivalry has emerged between Team USA and the Netherlands, who’ve gone 1-2 in the last three championships. The Americans won the World title in 2023 in dramatic fashion as a diving Femke Bol couldn’t quite get the better of Alexis Holmes, then Bol handily dispatched a Holmes-less relay in Paris at least year’s Olympics. The rubber match wasn’t nearly as close this time — the first three legs of Bryce Deadmon, Lynna Irby-Jackson, and Jenoah McKiver delivered Holmes a huge lead on the anchor leg, and she got the job done for the second time, equalling the championship record of 3:08.80 set two years ago. Bol and Lieke Klaver, the Dutch second leg, carried the baton well but the full team couldn’t quite reel in the Americans and had to settle for silver.

In the 10,000m, Beatrice Chebet’s incredible run of dominance continued, as she picked up her first World title after winning double gold at last year’s Olympics with a blistering final 200 meters and a 30:37.61 performance. Chebet is now the reigning World champion, Olympic champion, World XC champion, and world record holder on the track — she’s pretty much shown the world she owns the 10K distance no matter how you frame it. And speaking of owning an event, Ryan Crouser picked up his third World gold (and seventh global title overall) despite missing the entire season up to this point with an elbow injury.

The women’s marathon kicked off day 3 in epic fashion, with Peres Jepchirchir returning to the top of the global podium after a 14th place finish at last year’s Olympic marathon, outkicking runner-up Tigst Assefa in dramatic fashion over the final 400 meters as the duo finished into Tokyo’s National Stadium, ultimately separated by two seconds 2:24:43 to 2:24:45. The biggest surprise of the day was Julia Paternain, who took bronze in her second-ever marathon in 2:27:23. Paternain, who ran for Arkansas collegiately and represents Uruguay internationally, won the nation’s first-ever World medal in any event.

In non-finals action, the favorites looked better than ever in the opening heats of the men’s 100m. Noah Lyles and Kishane Thompson, the 1-2 from last year’s Olympics, both ran 9.95 to easily win their heats, but Thompson’s Jamaican teammate Oblique Seville gave the fans a scare with a poor start in his heat — still qualifying, however, in 9.93. Three Jamaicans and three Americans will do battle with Letsile Tebogo, the Olympic 200m champ who won silver in the 100m at Worlds in 2023 and looked as good as ever winning his own heat.

The star-studded women’s 100m was headlined by Julien Alfred and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden doing what they’ve done all year — crush competition while looking completely relaxed. And with the likes of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson, and Sha’Carri Richardson all rounding into form at the right time, the battle for the third spot on the podium (or even higher?) will be fierce and historic.

The women’s 1500ms went fairly according to form, the biggest loss being Laura Muir failing to advance to the semi. Faith Kipyegon looked like, well, Faith Kipyegon, and all three Americans — Nikki Hiltz, Sinclaire Johnson, and Emily MacKay advanced. The men’s race, on the other hand, was true chaos, with 2021 Olympic champ Jakob Ingebrigtsen failing to advance in his first race back from an Achilles injury and the two fastest men in the world this year, Azeddine Habz and Phanuel Koech, both failing to qualify as well. Team USA also went three-for-three on the men’s side, with Cole Hocker winning his heat comfortably and Jonah Koech and Ethan Strand both advancing with safe third-place results.

The men’s steeplers didn’t fare quite as well as the 1500m runners, as Olympic silver medalist Kenneth Rooks and U.S. leader Isaac Updike missed the final and Team USA will look to Dan Michalski to take on the likes of Olympic champ Soufiane El Bakkali and world record holder Lamacha Girma. The most dramatic moment of that event was a nasty fall by Boulder-based Kiwi Geordie Beamish, who tumbled to the track with a lap to go but still recovered in time to advance.

Despite packing as much drama as possible into the first 36 or so hours of action, the fun is just getting started. In case you missed it yesterday, you can catch up with all the action with our reaction show live from Tokyo, as well as daily Good Morning (or evening, depending on your time zone) Track and Field with Eric Jenkins and Aisha Praught-Leer. You can also catch up with all our athlete interviews over on the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel, and subscribe to make sure you don’t miss any of the action.

Race Of The Day: Women’s 10,000m

Despite hot, humid conditions with temperates north of 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the women of the 10,000m final made this one an honest one, with Kenyans Agnes Ngetich and Beatrice Chebet doing much of the early leading then the reigning World champ, Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, taking over with 1000m to go.

But hot weather or cold, slow pace or fast, no one can seem to find a way to beat Chebet these days. It was wildly impressive just to see Italy’s Nadia Battocletti simply stay near the World champ once she unleashed her kick, picking up her second silver medal in as many years, but the 25-year-old Kenyan’s toolbox is simply too big and too sharp right now. In the last two seasons, Chebet has won four global titles, set world records in the 5000m, 10,000m, and road 5km, and become the first woman in history under 14 minutes and 29 minutes in her specialty events.

The fireworks in this race and the way Chebet handily dispatched Battocletti and Tsegay, who ended up with bronze, only increases the hype for a rematch between Chebet and Faith Kipyegon. Kipyegon won Worlds in 2023, but that was before Chebet truly came into her peak form, and in Paris the younger runner got the better of the 1500m GOAT over 5000m.

A moment on Tsegay: it’s a real shame that the 28-year-old Ethiopian is perpetually overshadowed by her rivals. Gudaf Tsegay now has six global medals outdoors — two each in the 1500m, 5000m, and 10,000m, including World titles over the latter two distances in 2022 and 2023 — plus two indoor titles and a 5000m PB of 14:00.21, the previous world record. She’s one of the greatest distance runners of all time; she simply has the unfortunate luck of reaching her peak at the same time as the best ever.

All in all, this was one to forget for the Americans — Elise Cranny (12th), Emily Infield (14th), and Taylor Roe (18th) struggled once the race strung out. Team GB deserves a lot of credit for putting two of their finishers ahead of Cranny — Megan Keith and Calli Hauger-Thackery finished 10th and 11th, respectively. But once Chebet and Ngetich started unleashing their attacks on the field, it was a small few who had any chance of contending.

Athlete Of The Day: Ryan Crouser

It takes a special athlete to rack up the resume Ryan Crouser has — world record holder in the shot put, three-time Olympic champ, three-time World champ, and owner of the top four farthest throws in history.

But Crouser’s greatest skill may not be his superhuman strength, his gravity-defying agility, or his picture-perfect technique: it may be his ability to perform better than anyone else in the world even when he is far from his best. We got a taste of it in 2023 when Crouser developed two blood clots in his legs just before the World Championships in Budapest and still came away with the win and the second-longest throw of all time, but 2025 was on another level.

Battling an elbow injury all spring, Crouser didn’t record his first in-competition mark of 2025 until the qualifying round on the morning of Day 1. As the reigning World champ, he had the luxury of skipping out on USAs to focus on getting to Tokyo healthy, but even the best of athletes usually have some rust to bust when they do return to competition. And it’s highly likely that Crouser wasn’t at 100 percent — his 22.34m winning throw was the shortest of his gold-medal winning marks by quite a margin, and only one of his six throws over two rounds cleared the 22-meter mark.

A talent can produce a special performance at their best. A champion can do great things under any kind of adversity. And if there was any shadow of a doubt left, Ryan Crouser showed yesterday that he’s a champion of the highest order.

Photo Of The Day

Teamwork makes the dream work! Americans Susanna Sullivan and Jess McClain, who set the early pace in the marathon together running 1-2 ahead of the field for much of the first half, ended up finishing fourth and eighth overall.

Social Moment Of The Day

“I kind of thought, ‘F*ck it. I’m not getting stuck out of this again. I’m gonna throw everything I have in it, go around everyone. I’ll go wide. I’ll do whatever it takes. Lucky! I’m usually unlucky. It’s just the luck balancing out.”

After finishing one spot out of qualifying in two rounds of last year’s Olympic 1500m, Sophie O’Sullivan would not be denied this time as she dove for the line to advance to the semifinal as the last qualifier by 0.08 seconds, running 4:02.12 ahead of Esther Guerrero’s 4:02.20.