Tops In Tokyo

The 2025 World Athletics Championships are over, and with them so is that ridiculous run of five global championships in five consecutive years.  It ended where it all began--in Tokyo, with one major exception.  This time, there were fans.  And what a difference it made!  A packed stadium full of cheering fans brought out the best from track & field's best.  Tokyo waited four years for it, and they were treated to quite the spectacle.

Mondo Duplantis broke the world record.  Because he always does.  Which was just one of several all-time great performances during the week.  Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone showed just how special a talent she really is by winning the 400 without hurdles.  Olympic champions followed up their gold medals in Paris with a World title.  There were some disappointments and surprises, too, as well as some breakthroughs.  They're the ones who we need to keep an eye on leading up to LA.

After winning 14 gold medals in Paris, Team USA won 16 in Tokyo!  There are 48 events at the World Athletics Championships.  Americans won a third of them!  Those 16 gold medals set a record.  The other 32 gold medals were split between 20 countries, with Kenya grabbing seven of them.  Overall, a record 53 countries won medals, including first-timers Samoa, Saint Lucia and Uruguay and first-time gold medalist Tanzania.

Those were just some of the superlatives we saw over nine days in Japan.  There were too many to count, in fact.  But I'll, of course, give it a try anyway!

Five-timers Club: Saturday Night Live isn't the only one with a Five-timers Club.  Ryan Crouser (men's shot put), Mondo Duplantis (men's pole vault) and Faith Kipyegon (women's 1500) are track & field's Five-timers Club.  They won the gold medal in their event at all five of the global championships from 2021-25, starting and ending their runs in Tokyo.

Hello, World: Collen Kebinatshipi celebrated his coming out party.  The 21-year-old won gold in the men's 400 in an electrifying world-leading 43.53 seconds.  He then anchored Botswana to gold in the men's 4x400 relay.  This guy was the breakout star of the World Championships and could be the face of the 400 meters for the next decade.

It's Melissa's World, We're All Just Living In It: Melissa Jefferson-Wooden entered the World Championships as the favorite in the women's 100.  No one expected a dominant, Championship-record 10.61-second performance.  Then she won the 200 in similarly dominant fashion.  In the women's 4x100 relay, she made it 3-for-3.

Finally A World Champ: Val Allman won a surprise Olympic gold in Tokyo four years ago.  She then won bronze and silver at the World Championships before defending her Olympic title in the women's discus.  The only thing that was missing was the World Championships gold medal.  Until now.  In the same stadium where she won her first Olympic title, she finally won her first World title.

She Has Arrived: Anna Hall has been the Next Big Thing in the heptathlon for the past few years.  Heptathlon legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee is her biggest fan.  Hall won bronze at the 2022 World Championships, then silver in 2023.  Last summer in Paris, she was injured and finished fifth.  In Tokyo, she reached the top of the podium, joining her friend and mentor as the only Americans ever to win the World Championship in the heptathlon.

That's One Way to Bounce Back: Cole Hocker won Olympic gold in the men's 1500 last year and was among the favorites in Tokyo.  He was disqualified in the semifinals, though.  Hocker was still entered in the 5000 and ended up leaving the World Championships with a gold medal anyway...in his weaker event.

From Selling Phones to Grabbing Gold: Cordell Tinch was out of track & field from 2020-22, selling cell phones in Wisconsin.  He returned to the sport in 2023 and made the team for the World Championships.  Last year, he finished fourth at Olympic Trials.  Now he's a World Champion.

Sweet Redemption: At the Tokyo Olympics, Rai Bejamin lost to Karsten Warholm in the Race of the Games and arguably the best 400 hurdles race in history.  Noah Lyles was the heavy favorite in the 200 at those Olympics, but settled for bronze in the empty stadium.  In their return to Tokyo, Benjamin left no doubt who the best men's 400 hurdler in the world currently is, backing up his Olympic gold with his first World title.  Lyles, meanwhile, ran a 19.51 in the semifinals and a 19.52 in the final to join Usain Bolt as a four-time consecutive World Champion in the 200.  They also anchored the U.S. relays, with Lyles adding another gold in the 4x100.

Yes, She Cam: We've become accustomed to Mondo Duplantis bettering his world record by a centimeter every time we see him.  There's another field event athlete who's just as dominant in their event.  Camryn Rogers in the women's hammer throw.  She had the five furthest throws of the competition en route to her second straight World title.  That's just the half of it, though.  Rogers became just the second woman in history with an 80-meter effort.

Saying Farewell: Two legends of the sport called it a career in Tokyo.  Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the five-time World and three-time Olympic champion in the women's 100, made the final and finished sixth before winning her 17th career World Championships medal--a silver--in the 4x100 relay.  Dalilah Muhammad, the former world record holder and 2016 Olympic champion in the women's 400 hurdles (before Sydney McLaughlin and Femke Bol took over the event) made one last World Championships final and finished seventh in her last race.