Tokyo set for athletics extravaganza to ease pain of Covid-hit Olympics
TOKYO: A sea of purple posters at the Narita Airport announces the World Athletics Championships — in both English and Japanese. Banners of Haruka Kitaguchi, Japan’s javelin star, are plastered on the walls of the mazy metro stations in the Japanese capital. On the buildings in Ginza, digital billboards have the Japanese athletics team on display.
After a spectator-less Olympics four years ago during the Covid-19 pandemic, Tokyo is geared up to host global athletics’ extravaganza starting from Saturday.
It was an emotional memory for Japanese athletics chief Yuko Arimori who teared up when asked at the opening press conference on Friday what it meant to finally have fans in attendance at the championships.
“Sports isn’t just for athletes but for everyone to enjoy,” the former marathon runner said as she recalled being cheered on by fans at her international debut at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships.
The stadium is sold out on most nights, and as of Friday evening, nearly 500,000 tickets have been sold for the nine-day event featuring more than 2,000 athletes from 200 countries.
“This will be an athletics display of the ages,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said at Friday’s press conference, highlighting Usain Bolt’s presence at the World Athletics Ultimate Championships countdown party a day earlier. “Sports has the unique ability to touch the hearts and minds and lives of young people.”
A Covid-delayed, spectator-less Olympics pushed World Athletics and the athletes to become more creative, better connected and grasp the use of advanced technology. “The athletes came back stronger, more mentally resilient,” Coe said.
He also defended World Athletics’ decision to cap off the season with the championships rather than it being the crescendo amid a stacked Diamond League season.
When asked, Coe brushed off any downside to two big-ticket events like the men and women’s 100m being scheduled for the same night, saying “it’ll work well”.
Several Olympic champions are headlining day one of the championships. It’s almost a given that Sweden’s Armando Duplantis will win gold and break another world record (his own) in the men’s pole vault, although that much-awaited display will come later as Saturday is just the qualifying round.
USA’s Valerie Allman, Olympic champion in Paris, leads the field in the women’s discus throw, while countrymate Ryan Crouser makes his season’s debut in Tokyo after battling injury. Crouser is the world record holder in the men’s shot put, a three-time Olympic champion and two-time world champion, his accolades almost guaranteeing the US a medal in the event.
Yet another US superstar to take the spotlight — which he absolutely adores — is Noah Lyles. The 28-year-old showman is the Olympic and defending champion in the men’s 100m but currently holds the third fastest time this year with 9.90. Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson is the world lead with a sensational 9.75 run at the Jamaican Championships this June.
USA’s Kenneth Bednarek isn’t too far behind with 9.79 at the US Championships last month. Lyles and Bednarek will renew their rivalry in the 100m after Bendarek shoved Lyles following a heated showdown at the USA Track & Field Championships.
The women’s 100m comes with its own set of year-long rivalry. USA’s Melissa Jefferson-Wooden arrives undefeated this year with a 10.65, the same time that won team-mate Sha’Carri Richardson gold in Budapest 2023.
Jamaican twins Tina and Tia Clayton have taken the sprinting world by storm this year. Unfortunately, only national champion Tina will compete in the 100m dash this year after Tia suffered an injury during Jamaican trials.
Five-time world champion and sprint goddess Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will be ending her career “on her own terms” after Tokyo, which marks her ninth world championships. The 38-year-old Jamaican is an eight-time Olympic medalist and undoubtedly considered one of the greatest sprinters of all time. She’s the third-fastest woman in the world with a 10.60 clocked in 2021.
The women’s 400m will be anyone’s game. Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser comes in with a 48.67 world lead set in the Zurich Diamond League final last month, while Dominican sprinter Marileidy Paulino is the defending and Olympic champion with a 48.81 this season.
AGENCIES ADD: Further across the nine days of action at the championships, some of the sport’s biggest names namely Faith Kipyegon, Karsten Warholm and Femke Bol will seek to etch their names into the history books.
Kipyegon has had an iron grip on the 1,500m title and in Tokyo is targeting an unprecedented double-double by also defending the 5,000m crown she won in Budapest at the last world championships two years ago.
Warholm has won three of the last four world titles in the men’s 400m hurdles, but his bid to extend his dominance will be threatened by Olympic champion Rai Benjamin and Brazilian Alison dos Santos.
Bol is the locked-in favourite for the women’s race: the only woman to have dipped under the 52sec mark this season arrives in Japan on the back of eight successive victories.
While records on the track can be expected, they are unlikely in the road races where the suffocating Tokyo heat is sure to take its toll on athletes.
Record temperatures and debilitating humidity have prompted organisers to start the race walk and marathon events 30 minutes earlier on the opening weekend in a bid to beat the morning heat.
Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2025
