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

Heats: Thursday, September 18th at 6:55 am ET on Peacock and USA

Semifinals: Friday, September 19th at 7:45 am ET on Peacock and USA

Final: Sunday, September 21st at 6:35 am ET on Peacock and CNBC

Top contenders: Any doubts about Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson after injury kept her out of competition for over a year after the Olympics have been firmly silenced. Hodgkinson posted the two fastest times of the year in her only two outings in Silesia and Lausanne, both in August. Currently, her ability to run over a whole second faster than any of her competitors means she should be in a position to win almost any type of race, albeit, given the long injury layoff, she may take a conservative approach and try to control the race from the front, as she did in the Olympic final.

The season’s breakout star is Audrey Werro of Switzerland, who has run five of the twenty fastest times in the world this year, including three in a nine day span in late August which culminated in an impressive victory in the Diamond League Final in Zurich. That performance made her the second fastest athlete this year, and that level of consistency puts her in a strong position to reach the podium. 

Meanwhile, Georgia Hunter Bell was, until mid-August, a potential favorite for gold, when Werro and Hodgkinson produced times ahead of hers on the descending order list. However, her 1500m strength gives her a lethal ‘kick’ in the home straight of an 800m, and last year’s Olympic bronze medalist over 1500m has chosen to focus solely on the 800m in Tokyo, so she remains a strong contender for the podium.

Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma has not raced since her victory at the Pre Classic on July 5th. She ran her season best of 1:56.64 back on May 3rd in China, which puts her fifth on times going into Tokyo. If healthy, she’s the kind of athlete we expect to be on the podium, and potentially even threaten for the win, but she also has some unexpected performances, like her bizarre last-place finish at the World Indoor Championships in March.

2025 World Indoor champion Prudence Sekgodiso of South Africa showed some excellent form throughout indoors and the earlier part of the outdoor season, but her last couple of outings have been less impressive: a pair of sixth place finishes in Lausanne and Zurich. Is she running out of steam from racing non-stop since late January?

Kenyan Lillian Odira comes into Tokyo as the third fastest woman in the world in 2025, but was essentially paced to that time by Keely Hodgkinson in Silesia—her only outdoor race outside Kenya this year. She failed to make the final at World Indoors in March or the Olympic final last year, so her ability to translate fast times to strong finishes at global championships is unproven.

Dark Horses: It seems bizarre to call the defending World Champion a dark horse, but Mary Moraa has oscillated between the sublime and the disastrous in her 800m outings this season. However, her reputation as an agent of chaos means there is every possibility that the Moraa of 2023 and 2024 turns up and gets on the podium.

Aussie Jess Hull will be doubling back from the 1500m. She’ll have more racing in her legs than most women in the field, but there’s sometimes something freeing about taking a free hit at a secondary event, and with plenty of tactical 800m racing practice from Grand Slam Track, Hull could be a surprise package in the 800m and sneak a medal.

Last year’s fourth place finisher at the Olympics, Shafiqua Maloney has had an up and down season but appears to be rounding into form at the right time, running a 1:57.29 personal best for fourth in the Diamond League final.

USA’s Roisin Willis is only ranked fifteenth on time here, but she will take some confidence from a win at the World U20 championships in 2022—ahead of one Audrey Werro—and has demonstrated great tactical acumen in winning multiple NCAA titles plus a U.S. championship. As was the case for her Stanford teammate Juliette Whittaker in Paris, after an NCAA season without as many opportunities to race a truly world class field, it may be worth taking her seed time with a grain of salt. 

One good stat: Botswana’s Oratile Nowe comes in as the sixth fastest qualifier (1:56.76), and if she manages to land on the podium, she would be the first woman from her country to medal at a global championship since 2013 (Amantle Montsho took silver in the 400m).