Greetings from Tokyo! We’re only one day away from the 2025 World Athletics Championships starting Saturday, September 13th (the evening of Friday the 12th EDT).

In case you missed it, you can read our comprehensive sprint preview here as we move onto the events 800m on up. During the meet, we’ll bring you minute-by-minute coverage, daily live shows, and newsletters all along the way. You can find a full schedule with entries and live results here.

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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

Prelims: Sunday, September 14th at 8:15 pm ET on Peacock

Final: Wednesday, September 17th at 8:57 am ET on Peacock and USA

Top contenders: These days, this event looks like a three-way battle between Winfred Yavi, Faith Cherotich, and Peruth Chemutai. They’re the three fastest women of the year and they’re also the podium from last summer’s Olympics in Paris.

If you buy that NCAA athletes—their seed times not typically buoyed by rabbited DL races—are underranked in these settings, you’ll also want to pay attention to Kenyan Doris Lemngole, the Alabama superstar who became the first collegian to break nine minutes in the event at the NCAA Championship. She also won her only Diamond League outing, albeit in a modest 9:16.36 in Lausanne, due to the apocalyptic downpour during her race.

Dark horses: Frenchwoman Alice Finot had the home crowd rocking last summer en route to her fourth place finish in this event with a 8:58.67 national record. She only has a season’s best of 9:09.84 (when she was a distant 10th at the Prefontaine Classic) but could maybe find her form again on the championship stage.

Lexy Halladay-Lowry, Angelina Napoleon, and Kaylee Mitchell are at their first global championship for Team USA. Last year, the top American in the Paris Olympic final was Courtney Wayment, who finished in 12th place, so any improvement on that would be a good showing for the young squad.

One good stat: Yavi, Chemutai, and Cherotich aren’t just the three fastest women in 2025, they’re the second, third, and fourth fastest women ever in this event, respectively.