It’s nearly time for the Big Show in Tokyo! The CITIUS MAG crew is flying halfway across the globe to bring you the best of track and field from Japan starting Saturday, September 13th—or Friday the 12th if you’re living on the American side of the International Date Line.

There’s plenty of running, jumping, and throwing on tap for the 2025 World Athletics Championships, and we’ll have minute-by-minute coverage and daily live shows and newsletters all along the way. You can find a full schedule with entries and live results here. To kick things off, we’re giving you event-by-event previews of every competition on tap for Tokyo so you head into the weekend with all the latest insight and analysis.

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How to keep up with all of CITIUS MAG’s extensive coverage of the World Championships – powered by ASICS:

• 🎥 CHAMPS CHATS - We will be streaming our post-race show live on YouTube at the conclusion of every evening session in Tokyo (AM in America) featuring Chris Chavez, Eric Jenkins, Anderson Emerole, Paul Hof-Mahoney and more from the CITIUS MAG team.
• 🎧 CHAMPS CHATS | Will immediately be available to stream, download and listen as a podcast on Apple Podcasts + Spotify or wherever you get your shows on The CITIUS MAG Podcast feed. Exclusive interviews with athletes will also be published as podcasts.
• 🎧 We will have episodes of Off The Rails live from Tokyo | Apple Podcasts + Spotify
• 📬 Daily newsletters, so be sure you’re subscribed to the CITIUS MAG Newsletter
• 🎦 Post-race interviews on the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel.
• 📲 Follow along for all updates, news, results and more on X and Instagram.
• 📆 Bookmark our full schedule of events here.
• 🏃 If you’re in Tokyo, join us for group runs with Asics on Sept. 12th and Sept. 19th. Details here.

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Schedule + How To Watch

Heats: Friday, September 12th at 10:23pm ET on Peacock

Semifinals: Sunday, September 14th at 7:20am ET on Peacock and CNBC

Final: Sunday, September 14th at 7:20am ET on Peacock and CNBC

Top contenders: Without a Julien Alfred playing spoiler on the men’s side, the battle for gold in Tokyo will almost certainly come down to another epic Team USA vs. Jamaica clash. Eight of the nine fastest 100-meter runners in the world this year come from one of those two nations, as well as the full podium from the Paris Olympics. Reigning World/Olympic champion Noah Lyles will have his work cut out for him to extend his gold medal streak, however, because Olympic silver medalist Kishane Thompson has looked better than ever in 2025, running a world-leading 9.75 at the Jamaican Trials. And Lyles’s not-so-friendly rival Kenny Bednarek, the U.S. champion, has improved his 100m game year after year as well. Thompson and Bednarek have stacked up wins all season, but Lyles has steadily moved in the right direction after an early-season injury and can never be counted out in a championship setting.

The other biggest threat for gold also comes from Jamaica. Oblique Seville may not have an individual medal but he has a 3-2 lifetime record against Lyles head-to-head, beating him in their last two matchups in London and Lausanne. At the same time, however, he’s 0-2 against Thompson this year, so he could easily run really well and still not be the top Jamaican finisher.

Dark horses: The second and third place finishers from USAs, Courtney Lindsey and T’Mars McCallum, have less international racing experience than the names ahead of them, but they have the talent and PBs to contend for medals in the right race. Lindsey and McCallum ran 9.82 and 9.83, respectively, in Eugene and if they can replicate that level of experience they should be in the mix for bronze, at least. Jamaican Ackeem Blake has never made a World 100m final, but he’s also got a 9.88 to his name this season and a solid track record on the Diamond League circuit.

Experienced runners like Letsile Tebogo (Botswana) and Zharnel Hughes (Great Britain), the 2023 medalists alongside Lyles, haven’t made a huge splash on the circuit this season so far but tend to run well at championships. Hughes’s British teammate Jeremiah Azu is the World Indoor champ over 60 meters but has only run 9.97 this season; he’ll need to step it up a bit over the longer sprint to truly contend. On the other end of the spectrum, South Africans Akani Simbine and Bayanda Walaza have made big splashes early in the season but haven’t (yet) put the pieces together for a podium outcome in championships.

Perhaps the biggest wild card of all is Abdul-Rasheed Saminu of Ghana and the University of South Florida. He ran 9.86 at the NCAA East Regional then missed the final entirely at the championship. Then he ran 9.84 after NCAAs and finished just behind Thompson at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but only ran 10.01 in that race. So who knows what we’re going to get.

One good stat: This will be the first World Championship 100m of the decade without Fred Kerley, who medaled in three of the last four global finals but did not compete at USAs and is currently provisionally suspended by the AIU for whereabouts failures.