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: Sunday, September 14th at 10:20pm ET on Peacock

Semifinals: Wednesday, September 17th at 8:00am ET on Peacock and USA

Final: Friday, September 19th at 8:27am ET on Peacock and USA

Top contenders: Truly, this conversation should begin and end with Femke Bol, of the Netherlands. With Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone moving over to the flat 400m, Bol may be the biggest lock for gold of any event on the docket, as the world leader and only sub-52 runner this year. But it’s worth noting that McLaughlin-Levrone wasn’t the only American to beat Bol last year: Anna Cockrell stepped up in the most critical of situations, to win Olympic silver in a personal-best 51.87. Nothing Cockrell’s done this year has suggested she can take Bol down again… but then again, no one expected it last year either.

Bol will benefit from running her own race and not going out too hard in pursuit of the elusive Olympic gold, but Cockrell and her compatriot, wily veteran Dalilah Muhammad, will be looking for any weakness to exploit. Muhammad, who’s said this will be her final professional season, is the people’s champion here, and she hasn’t exactly coasted into the finish line, claiming the U.S. title in August and running her fastest times since 2021. Winning a medal of any color would be the perfect cap to a season and career to remember.

Dark horses: Jasmine Jones, the third-placer from USAs, had a slow start to the season after dealing with a minor injury, but after finishing fourth in the Olympics fresh out of college, the sky has to be the limit for the 23-year-old in her first full season as a pro provided she’s gotten more healthy training in. This event is more stratified and less deep than the short hurdles, but it’s possible that Jamaican Andrenette Knight or Slovakian Emma Zapletalova step up to the next level and sneak onto the podium.

One good stat: When Dalilah Muhammad won her Olympic title in 2016, Femke Bol was still three years away from running her first-ever 400m hurdles race.