Track and field, like all sports, is ultimately entertainment. At times, following the sport can feel like science, or history, or even math (when world rankings are involved), but at the end of the day, the fans just want a good show.

Nobody knows this better than Noah Lyles. The boisterous sprint star makes a conscious choice at every turn to be the biggest, flashiest, most provocative ambassador for the sport. As a result, he has many supporters and many detractors, but he also earns the most mainstream coverage and starts the loudest conversations.

Talking the talk is one thing Noah is very good at — but he’s also incredible at walking the walk running the run in such a manner as to create extremely dramatic outcomes nearly every time he settles into the blocks. Friday’s 200m final was no exception. Lyles, going for an incredible fourpeat as World champion in his primary event, had to toe the line against the two men who’d beaten him in Paris — Olympic champ Letsile Tebogo and U.S. frenemy Kenny Bednarek — as well as yet another rising Jamaican star in Bryan Levell.

For about 150 meters, it was anyone’s race. Lyles the ringmaster couldn’t have scripted it any better. But in the end, Lyles’s ability to maintain top end speed down the homestretch better than anyone else won out once again, backing up his self-created hype with a fourth 200m gold and a 12th global medal. You’ve gotta hand it to him — track and field would be a lot more boring in his absence.

On the women’s side, the outcome was far less in doubt as 100m champ Melissa Jefferson-Wooden beat everyone around the turn and never looked back, powering away to a big personal best of 21.68 to complete the 100m/200m double. She becomes the first woman in over a decade to complete the feat at Worlds, after Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in 2013, and the first American ever. British up-and-comer Amy Hunt beat the odds to claim silver in 22.14 and 2023 World champ Shericka Jackson returned to the podium after an injury-plagued 2024 season with a bronze.

One of the few finals that wasn’t completely full of drama was the women’s 400m hurdles, where the shift of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to the flat event meant that Femke Bol easily defended her 2023 title. Her 51.54 winning time is the ninth fastest mark ever, and together she and McLaughlin-Levrone now claim nine of the ten fastest times ever (Bol has four, McLaughlin-Levrone has five, and Dalilah Muhammad, who finished seventh at what’s likely her final Worlds, has one).

On the other end of the spectrum, there were so many plot twists in the men’s 400m hurdles that they couldn’t just be contained to the race itself. First, reigning champ Karsten Warholm clattered his third hurdle after getting out to an early lead, then his fading opened the door for Rai Benjamin and Alison dos Santos to take the lead, then Benjamin nearly gave way his win by smashing his final hurdle before the finish line. Ultimately, Benjamin crossed first in 46.52 to claim his first World title. Or did he? He was initially DQed for impeding another runner, then reinstated, then retained after several appeals. Phew.

The triple jump provided all the field-event theatrics as it came down to the wire, with gold and silver medalists Pedro Pichardo and Andrea Dallavalle trading the lead on their final jumps. Pichardo came out on top with a world-leading 17.91m after an injury-shortened season, but everywhere you looked in Tokyo’s National Stadium, there was no lack of thrills and spills. The day’s track and field broadcast had more shock and awe than any soap opera ever could.

You can listen to Mac Fleet, Eric Jenkins, Mitch Dyer, Chris Chavez, and Anderson Emerole break down all the craziness on the live reaction show show, as well as daily Good Morning Track and Field shows with Aisha Praught-Leer tuning in from home. 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: Men’s 200m

Noah Lyles may have been at the top of the marquee, but the men’s 200m field was fairly stacked from top to bottom. It took sub-20 seconds in the semis to make the final, and sub-19.80 just to crack the top five. Except for Lyles’s 19.51 in the semis, the top five finishers all ran their fastest time of the year in this race, and five of the six fastest men in the world this year claimed the top spots.

Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo didn’t even run poorly and still got fourth. His 19.65 was a season’s best and the fifth fastest time of his career overall; he simply got beat by three other athletes at the top of their games. Like his compatriot Oblique Seville in the 100m, Bryan Levell has developed into a much better championship runner at the ripe old age of 21 and his first medal will surely not be his last. His 19.64 places him in the top 15 all-time, only one year removed from squeaking out of the repechage rounds at the Olympics.

With four World titles over 200m, World/Olympic titles over 100m, and the American record in the longer event, Lyles is running out of things left to accomplish… except for the big one: Olympic 200m champion, a title that’s evaded him twice. The next time it’s on offer will be in Los Angeles in 2028, which would be the most appropriate stage to finally check off that last big goal. But with the way Levell, Tebogo, and other younger athletes are progressing, he’ll have to stay as sharp as ever for three more years to make that last dream come true.

Athlete Of The Day: Melissa Jefferson-Wooden

We’ve gotta stop saying the 200m is Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s “lesser” or “secondary” event. Her 21.68 places her eighth on the all time list, just 0.08 seconds behind Olympic champ Gabby Thomas — who, by the way, she beat in their last head-to-head meeting. Jefferson-Wooden checked off a sprint double that very few other athletes have ever accomplished, setting personal bests in both events and looking unbeatable every step of the way.

In many ways, track and field writ large will look back on 2025 as the year of Melissa. She hasn’t lost a race since May 3, and she hasn’t shied away from competing, either, running three Grand Slams, three Diamond Leagues, and the double at both USAs and Worlds. Track fans want our biggest stars to show up, race hard, and be gracious all season long, and Melissa has delivered every step of the way.

“Trackflation or not,” Jefferson-Wooden now has a faster 100m PB than Carmelita Jeter, Marion Jones, and Merlene Ottey and a faster 200m than Allyson Felix, Veronica Campbell-Brown, and Gwen Torrence. She’s faster over both events than Julien Alfred and Sha’Carri Richardson. The time has come to take the “rising” qualifier out of any Melissa Jefferson-Wooden descriptor: She’s a star, full stop, and she’s well on her way to becoming one of the greatest of all time.

Photo Of The Day

Talk about an emotional roller-coaster: Rai Benjamin had a lot to process in the moments immediately following his first World 400m hurdles gold. After taking the win, he found out he was DQed, then reinstated, then subject to an appeal by multiple national federations. At least he got to end on a high note as he retained his crown and got to watch training partner Jasmine Jones pick up a silver medal in the women’s final.

Social Moment Of The Day

It’s all over… or is it? Dalilah Muhammad teases that her professional career may not quite be at an end yet in her interview after finishing seventh in the 400m hurdles final.