World Athletics Championships: Meet in Review
Lyles' three gold medals made him the biggest star of a meet overflowing with them
I know the Diamond League track and field series will kick back into high gear later today with the staging of the second day of the Weltklasse meet in Zurich, but before that happens, I thought it would be interesting to review some — but certainly not all — of the highs and lows that occurred during the World Athletics Championships which concluded on Sunday after a nine-day run at the National Athletics Center in Budapest, Hungary.
This year’s meet was without some major star power as five gold medalists — Jake Wightman of Great Britain, Pedro Pichardo of Portugal, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the U.S., Malaika Mihambo of Germany, and Nafi Thiam of Belgium — from last year’s affair in Eugene, Oregon did not compete because of injuries. And a sixth defending champion — Michael Norman of the U.S. — withdrew after an injury-hampered campaign left him looking to put the 2023 season behind him and turn his attention to 2024 and the Olympic Games in Paris.
Despite the absence of those performers, I found the meet to be highly entertaining and exciting, and filled with copious amounts of athletic drama, particularly if you like to see jumping and throwing events won with come-through efforts in the latter rounds.
While I’m not sure if these were the best World Championships — in terms of marks — of the 19 that have been held, as Ato Boldon of NBC Sports and others contended, I would agree with a headline on a World Athletics post in which they were called the “most engaging.”
To me, no athlete was more engaging than American sprinter Noah Lyles.
Prior to the World Championships, he stated on social media that he was going to run 9.65 seconds in the 100 meters and 19.10 in the 200 in Budapest.
And though he fell well short of meeting those incredibly lofty times, he did become the first man since Jamaican great Usain Bolt in 2015 to win the 100 and 200, and run a leg on the victorious 400 relay in the World Championships.
The World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary had a slew of outstanding performances. Therefore, this notes column is on the long side. If this email appears clipped or truncated in your inbox, you should be able to click on “View entire message” to read it in its entirety.
Lyles’ victory in the 200 was expected, as he was the two-time defending champion, had not lost a race at the distance since the Olympic final in 2021 when he finished third behind Andre De Grasse of Canada and fellow American Kenny Bednarek, and had set an U.S. record of 19.31 in last year’s World Championships in Eugene, Oregon when he won the race by nearly half a second.
And the U.S. was heavily favored to win the 400 relay, although an American victory was not guaranteed due to the number of national team foursomes in the past that had either dropped the baton, been disqualified for passing zone violations or simply failed to advance to the final of global title meets — see the Olympics in 2021 — because of shoddy baton work.
But he was absolutely, positively, not favored to win the 100.
In fact, there were plenty of folks — including yours truly — who figured that his lack of a consistently good start might very well prevent him from earning a medal, let alone a gold one. In my event capsule previewing the men’s 100, I wrote that “Noah Lyles, the two-time defending 200 champion, will need to get a better-than-normal start for him if he’s going to be in the hunt for a medal after finishing third in the USATF meet.”
The USATF meet was in reference to the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships in Eugene in early July in which Lyles, following a bout with COVID-19, finished third behind Cravont Charleston and Christian Coleman to grab the final U.S. spot in the event for the World Championships.
Fred Kerley had been given a bye into the meet because he was the defending champion.
Yet it was Lyles who posted the second-fastest overall time of 9.95 seconds in the first-round heats in Budapest on the first day of the meet and it was Lyles who ran the fastest time in the semifinals the following afternoon with a 9.87 clocking that was only a hundredth of a second shy of his personal best set in 2019.
Based on how well he had run in the first two rounds, Lyles was regarded as a potential winner in the final about two and a half hours later, IF he got a good start.
Lyles did not have to rocket out of the blocks like 2019 World champion Coleman, but he needed to be relatively close to the leading men at the 50-meter mark so he could use his superior top-end speed to overhaul anyone of ahead of them and cross the finish line first.
With Kerley having been eliminated in his semifinal and with South African Akani Simbine, another potential medalist, having been disqualified for a false start in his, I viewed Lyles as one of five potential medalists in the eight-man final.
The others were Coleman and Oblique Seville of Jamaica, who had run 9.88 and 9.90 in winning the other two semifinals, and Zharnel Hughes of Great Britain and Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, who had clocked 9.93 and 9.98 to grab the automatic second qualifying spots in their semifinals.
Hughes and Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya had entered the meet with the season’s two fastest times at 9.83 and 9.84, respectively, but I did not see Omanyala contending for a medal in the final because he had been the last sprinter to qualify, based on his third-place time of 10.01 in the semifinal won by Lyles.
As expected, Coleman led the field out of the blocks in the final, but he stumbled ever so slightly about four or five steps into the race and went from first place to fifth in the final 30 meters of the contest.
Lyles, 26, got off to a good start, just as he had in the semifinals, and he began to make up ground on everyone midway through the race.
At 70 meters, it was becoming obvious he could win, and though he didn’t take the lead until there were perhaps 15 meters remaining, it was clear he had won when he crossed the finish line.
His time of 9.83 moved him into a three-way tie for 14th on the all-time world performer list and left him with a solid margin of victory over Tebogo, Hughes, and Seville, who each ran 9.88. Coleman placed fifth in 9.92, with Omanyala seventh in 10.07.
“After the semi round, I knew that if I got the same start, it’d be over,” Lyles told NBC Sport’s Lewis Johnson. “As my coach said as soon as I got back… you don’t need to do anything different. I don’t care where you are in the race. You just do what you did in that semifinal. And I was like, All right. I don’t need to do anything extra.”
Lyles’ victory marked the fourth consecutive time that an American had won the men’s 100 in the World Championships as Justin Gatlin and Coleman went 1-2 ahead of Bolt in the 2017 meet in London, Coleman won in 2019 in Doha, Qatar, and Kerley led a 1-2-3 U.S. finish in Eugene.
With the victory in the 100 secured, Lyles turned his attention to the 200, an event he often refers to as his baby.
After running 20.05 in his qualifying heat three days after the 100-meter final, Lyles won his semifinal in 19.76 the next night before winning the final in 19.52 just over 24 hours later.
Although his winning time was not as fast as some expected, it gave him a large margin of victory over U.S. teammate Erriyon Knighton, who ran 19.75 to win the silver medal after he had finished third last year and fourth in the Olympics.
Tebogo placed third in 19.81, followed by Hughes in 20.02, Bednarek in 20.07, and De Grasse in 20.14.
The final of the 400 relay was held the following night and although the U.S. team of Coleman, Kerley, Brandon Carnes, and Lyles did not have a high-quality baton pass on any of their three exchanges, they were runaway winners as Lyles capped the victory by holding up three fingers on his right hand as he crossed the finish line.
The Americans’ time of 37.38, which was tied for the ninth fastest in history and tied for the second fastest ever run by a U.S. foursome, left them well in front of Olympic champion and runner-up Italy, which clocked 37.62. Jamaica was third in 37.76, followed by Great Britain in 37.80, and Japan in 37.83.
“This is the third gold for me here,” Lyles said in a World Athletics post. “It’s sensational, amazing. You can’t do better. It’s out of control.
“I love Team USA because everybody is coming here thinking ‘I’m going to win.’ We’re able to put that into a team effort and then we’re unstoppable. The individual races are all about business but the team is fun. We all know we are fast. We don’t have to worry about whether we are going to win. It is just about getting the stick around and trusting each other. It’s fun to do this. I don’t put pressure on myself. Right now, I’m happy, but I’m joyful for life.”
Looking back: As impressive as Lyles was, his performances were a reminder of the greatness of Bolt, who set the current world records of 9.58 seconds in the 100 and 19.19 in the 200 during the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.
Bolt’s times are even more impressive when you consider that his schedule was more taxing than that of Lyles.
Bolt ran a first-round heat and quarterfinal of the 100 during his first day of competition before running a semifinal and final the next day.
Then after having a day off, he ran in a heat and quarterfinal of the 200 one day, a semifinal the next, and the final about 25 hours later.
His time in the 100 gave him a large margin of victory over runner-up Tyson Gay of the U.S., who ran 9.71. But his clocking in the 200 left him more than sixth tenths of a second in front of silver medalist Alfonso Edward of Panama, who ran 19.81 to set what was then a Central American record.
He then capped the meet of his life by running the second leg on a Jamaican team that won the 400 relay in a then-world record of 37.31.
Rolling on: Unlike her male sprint counterpart Noah Lyles, Sha’Carri Richardson of the U.S. was regarded as a potential gold medalist in the women’s 100 meters when she entered the World Championships.
The 23-year-old had won five of the six 100-meter finals in which she had run this year and had defeated Shericka Jackson of Jamaica, another potential gold medalist, in Diamond League meets in Rabat, Morocco on May 5 and Chorzow, Poland on July 16.
But after a horrendous start contributed to a third-place finish — behind Jackson and Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Ivory Coast — in a semifinal in Budapest, she was viewed by many as an underdog entering the final that was held about 70 minutes later.
Like Lyles in the men’s race, she was viewed as having the best top-end speed of anyone in the field. But also like him, she had to have a solid start if she was going to have a chance of overtaking the top competitors in the final fourth of the race.
Running in lane nine, Richardson came out of the blocks well — by her standards — and was not woefully far back of co-leaders Jackson and two-time defending champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica 40 meters into the race.
By the 60-meter mark, Richardson was in full flight and beginning to make up ground on everyone, including Jackson, who had taken over the lead from five-time champion Fraser-Pryce.
The defending 200-meter champion did not appear to be aware of the fast-closing Richardson until perhaps the last 10 meters of the race when the American took the lead and then threw her arms up just before she crossed the finish line.
Her time of 10.65 was a championship record, a personal best by six hundredths of a second and moved her into a three-way time for fifth on the all-time performer list with Jackson and Marion Jones of the U.S. It also gave her a solid margin of victory over Jackson, whose 10.72 effort left her comfortably clear of Fraser-Pryce (10.77), Ta Lou (10.81), and Julien Alfred of St. Lucia (10.93).
“I feel amazing,” Richardson said in a Eurosport post. “I feel like hard work pays off. I’ve been dedicating myself. I’ve been keeping my faith strong this season and just believing and knowing whatever you practice is what you put forward, and I’m grateful.”
Her appreciation no doubt grew further as the meet progressed, for she ran a personal best of 21.92 to finish third in the 200 — behind Jackson (21.41) and U.S. teammate Gabby Thomas (21.81) — and then ran the anchor leg on a U.S. team that won the 400 relay in a championship-record time of 41.03.
Jamaica, anchored by Jackson, finished second in 41.21, followed by Great Britain in 41.97.
The winning time was the fourth fastest in history and was even more impressive because the U.S. team of Tamari Davis, TeeTee Terry, Thomas, and Richardson had poor exchanges on their first two baton passes and the final one between Thomas and Richardson was nothing great.
Leading performances: In my humble opinion, the two best single performances of the meet were turned in by Shericka Jackson of Jamaica in the women’s 200 meters and Ryan Crouser of the U.S. in the men’s shot put.
Jackson’s 21.41 clocking in the 200 left her fourth tenths of a second in front of silver medalist Gabby Thomas of the U.S. and was the second fastest time in history behind the 21.34 world record that was set by Florence Griffth-Joyner of the U.S. in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea.
Crouser won the men’s shot put on the first night of the meet with a best of 23.51 meters (77 feet 1¾ inches) that left him more than a meter ahead of surprise silver medalist Leonardo Fabbri of Italy ((22.34/73-3½) and was the second-farthest in history.
Jackson, 29, has been so dominant in the 200 during the past two seasons that her blank expression immediately after crossing the finish line made me wonder if she was expecting to run faster.
However, there was nothing understated about Crouser’s reaction to his sixth-round put as it was only five centimeters short of the world record of 23.56 (77-3¾) that he had set in the Los Angeles Grand Prix at UCLA on May 27. Furthermore, he accomplished it while competing with a pair of blood clots in his lower left leg.
The 30-year-old Crouser had revealed on social media the day before the World Championships began that tests had revealed the blood clots after what he thought was a partially torn calf muscle had not responded to 10 days of treatment.
After consulting with doctors and his family, he made the decision to compete in Budapest, but admitted he was unsure how things would go.
After advancing to the final with a single put of 21.48 (70-5¾) in the qualifying round in the morning, he took the lead in the final with a first-round effort of 22.63 (74-3), despite the fact that he appeared to be holding back a bit.
He was more aggressive in the second round and his 22.98 (75-4¾) effort broke the 22.94 (75-3¼) meet record that he had set in winning his first World title last year.
A put of 22.28 (73-1¾) in the third round was followed by a pair of fouls in rounds four and five. But knowing that the gold medal was his as he stepped into the ring for the final effort of the competition, he threw caution to the wind. He knew it was a great put the second it left his right hand and immediately raised his arms in celebration while he was completing his follow through. He then took a few steps away from the circle, fell to his knees and raised his arms again.
“That was a tough one. The last throw was testament to all the hard work and dedication over the last year,” he said in a Reuters post. “The last few days have been hard, so with all that has happened, it was a phenomenal throw.”
He added that it was “the best performance of my life, given the health issues, the stress and all of it. It wasn’t quite a world record, but to me it was.”
Struggling to finish: On the same night that Crouser produced his clutch performance in the men’s shot put, Dutch athletics icons Sifan Hassan and Femke Bol ended up crashing to the track while battling for victories at the end of their respective events.
The 30-year-old Hassan, who had won the women’s 5,000 and 10,000 meters, and placed third in the 1,500 in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, had entered the same three events in Budapest.
The 10,000 was the first event on her grueling schedule and she had entered the home straightaway for the final 100 meters of the race with a small lead over Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia after the two of them had pulled away from defending champion and world-record-holder Letesenbet Gidey, she too of Ethiopia.
Tsegay had outkicked Hassan while winning a depth-laden 5,000-meter race in London on July 23, but it looked like Hassan might hold her off this time as she was still in the lead with 60 meters to go.
However, Tsegay then began to gain ground on Hassan. And as she did, Hassan began to drift out of lane one to the outside of lane two where she briefly made contact with the oncoming Tsegay after she had extended her right arm.
The contact occurred with about 30 meters left in the race and Hassan crashed to the track about five meters later after she had stumbled. She hit the track hard and eventually finished 11th in 31:53.35 after Tesgay had led Ethiopia to a 1-2-3 finish with a winning time of 31:27.18.
The next race — and final event — of the night was the mixed-sex 1,600-meter relay.
Bol, who had lowered the world indoor record in the women’s 400 to 49.26 seconds in February, had a small lead over U.S. runner Alexis Holmes when she took the baton for the anchor leg.
Given her credentials, the 23-year-old Bol was expected to pull away from Holmes — who has a personal best of 50.32 — in the home straightaway. But it was Holmes who began to close in on Bol, who was not displaying her typically strong finish.
Although Bol still had a small lead with 20 meters left in the race, Holmes had reduced her deficit to inches with 10 meters to go, and as she pulled alongside her Dutch rival, Bol started to lean forward in an attempt to cross the finish line first and she suddenly went down hard with five meters to go.
While Holmes’ 48.82-second anchor capped off a world-record time of 3 minutes 8.80 seconds for the U.S. team that also included Justin Robinson, Rosey Effiong, and Matthew Boling, Bol quickly rose to her feet and crossed the finish line in third place. But the Dutch team was disqualified because Bol had inadvertently dropped the baton as she was falling to the track.
Both Hassan and Bol were understandably disappointed with what had occurred, but they each went on to win a pair of medals during the remainder of the meet.
Hassan finished third in the 1,500 in 3:56.00 and second in the 5,000 in 14:54.11 in a pair of races that were won by Faith Kipyegon of Kenya in 3.54.87 and 14:53.88, respectively.
The heavily-favored Bol won the 400-meter hurdles in 51.70, the eighth-fastest time in history, before concluding the meet with a scintillating 48.79 anchor leg in the women’s 1,600 relay that brought the Netherlands from third place to first in the final 20 meters of the race and saw the Dutch lower their national record to 3:20.72.
Jamaica, which had the lead until the final three or four meters of the race, finished second in 3:20.88, followed by Great Britain in 3:21.04.
The U.S., which had won seven of the eight previous titles in the event, had been disqualified for a passing zone violation in the semifinals.
“The first three legs went so well that I felt like I had to finish as strongly as I could,” Bol said in a World Athletics post after she had passed Stacey Ann Williams of Jamaica about two strides from the finish. “I wanted to stay patient, but in the last meters, I said ‘No, we have to take it.’ It was one of my most important runs ever, but it is the first time we became world champions so it applies for all of us. Every tenth and hundredth of a second was needed. We had good exchanges and still barely won it.”
Historic double: As expected, Faith Kipyegon of Kenya became the first woman in the history of the World Championships to win the 1,500 and 5,000 meters in the same meet.
Her winning times of 3:54.87 and 14:53.88 were well off the world records of 3:49.11 and 14:05.20 that she had set in those events in early June. But the closing speed that the 29-year-old runner displayed in both races was impressive.
In the 1,500, a race in which she led almost the entire way, she ran the final 200 in 28.84, the last 400 in 56.53, and the final lap and a half in 1:27.24. It appeared to me that she never put the pedal to the metal in the home straightaway, running just fast enough to hold off her closest pursuers in Dribe Welteji of Ethiopia (3:55.69) and Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands (3:56.00).
In the final of the 5,000, which was held four days after the 1,500, she ran the last 600 in 1:30.11, the last lap in 55.59, and the final 200 in 27.12 while holding off Hassan (14:54.11) and countrywoman Beatrice Chebet (14:54.33) for the victory.
Her victory in the 1,500 was her second in a row and made her the first woman to have won the event three times during her career as her first victory came in 2017. She also won silver medals in 2015 and ’19.
“This has been an amazing year for me,” Kipyegon said in a World Athletics post after her win in the 5,000. “Making history today, winning two gold medals in a championship is what I was dreaming for this season. I have been patient, waiting to be able to break world records and win double golds. But my dream just came true, it is amazing.
“The race was not easy. It was a tactical one but I am mentally stable and have managed to push myself.”
Bouncing back: For the second year in a row, Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway won the men’s 5,000 after being outkicked by a British runner in the homestretch of the men’s 1,500. But his victory on the final day of the meet was quite different from his win in Eugene as he passed first-place Mohamed Katir of Spain about two strides from the finish line after having a large enough lead in the home straightaway last year that he was able to wave to the crowd during the final 20 meters of the race.
“I had a big feeling of relief when I got to the finish line,” Ingebrigtsen told Lewis Johnson of NBC Sports. “I knew I needed to do am absolutely perfect race to be able to win. So I really, really had to be patient and do my final sprint almost at the finish line. So it worked out but of course it’s a little bittersweet. A great victory again, a great achievement, but I’m not happy to be in this situation. I hope to never experience this in the future.”
The situation he referenced had to do with a “virus” that he said affected his performance in the 1,500-meter race in which Josh Kerr of Great Britain ran 3:29.38 to Ingebrigtsen’s 3:29.65, and in the 5,000, in which he ran 13:11.30 to Katir’s 13:11.44.
Despite not feeling well, the 22-year-old Ingebrigtsen ran his final 200 meters of the 5,000 in 26.20, the last lap in 52.45, and his final two laps in 1:50.65.
Repeat champions: Ingebrigtsen was one of 13 athletes who successfully defended their titles from last year in Budapest.
The other men to repeat were Noah Lyles of the U.S. in the 200, Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Joshua Cheptegai of Uganda in the 10,000, Grant Holloway of the U.S. in the 110 high hurdles, Mondo Duplantis in the pole vault, and Ryan Crouser of the U.S. in the shot put.
The repeat winners in the women’s meet were Shericka Jackson of Jamaica in the 200, Faith Kipyegon of Kenya in the 1,500, Katie Moon nee Nageotte of the U.S. in the pole vault, Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela in the triple jump, and Chase Ealey of the U.S. in the shot put.
Lyles, Cheptegai, and Holloway won their third consecutive titles while Rojas won her fourth in a row.
When it came to the relays, the U.S. women won their second consecutive title in the 4 x 1 and the American men won their third in a row in the 4 x 4 and ninth in the last 10 championships.
Unique situation: For the first time in the history of the World Championships gold medals were awarded to a pair of individuals in the same event.
That occurred on the fifth day of the meet when Nina Kennedy of Australia and Katie Moon of the U.S. were tied for first place at the conclusion of the women’s pole vault as they both cleared 4.90 (16-0¾) on their third attempts before missing three times at 4.95 (16-2¾).
Because they cleared the winning height on the same attempt, the next tiebreaker that came into play was the total number of misses each of them incurred during the competition, which was six for each of them.
A jump-off, in which the tied competitors jump at various heights until one clears a bar and one misses, was the third and final tiebreaker that could have been used to determine an outright winner. But given the length of the competition held in hot and muggy conditions, the 26-year-old Kennedy and the 32-year-old Moon both had concerns about how safe it would be to continue when each of them had already taken 12 jumps.
“I didn’t think she’d want to share it, I thought we might have had to keep jumping,” Kennedy said in an olympics.com post. "But, you know, I kind of looked at her and said, Hey, girl, you maybe wanna share this?
“And the relief on her face - and you could see it on my face - and it was mutual. And yeah, absolutely incredible to share a medal with Katie Moon. You know, we’ve been friends for so long so it’s super special.”
The upset win that wasn’t: Many media outlets — including NBC Sports — characterized Mary Moraa’s victory in the women’s 800 meters on Sunday as an upset.
I did not see things that way.
After all, the 23-year-old Kenyan had won seven consecutive 800-meter finals outdoors since finishing third to Athing Mu of the U.S. and Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain in the World Championships last year.
She had beaten the 21-year-old Hodgkinson in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England last August, as well as in a Diamond League meet in Lausanne, Switzerland on June 30 to improve her record to 3-1 against her British rival during the past two seasons.
Mu, 21, was the defending Olympic and World champion, but she had run only one 800 and one 1,500 this season prior to the World Championships. In addition, her coach, Bobby Kersee, had told the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 2 that a decision had not yet been made on whether she was going to run in Budapest or bypass the meet to focus on preparing for the Olympic Games in Paris next summer.
That uncertainty made me wonder about how ready she was going to be when it came time to compete.
As it turned out, Mu did lead the field through the first last lap in 56.01 and past 600 meters in 1:26.21 before Moraa passed her with about 50 meters left in the race and Hodgkinson soon did the same.
Olympic silver medalist Hodgkinson set her sites on Moraa after passing Mu, but the Kenyan was able to repel her charge over the final 25 meters of the race and crossed the finish line in a personal best of 1:56.03. Hodgkinson finished second in 1:56.34, followed by Mu in 1:56.61.
“I am pleased to get gold this time and become world champion,” Moraa said in a sports.yahoo.com post. “After bronze last year I wanted to improve and I have.”
The upset win that was: Laulauga Tausaga-Collins pulled off the biggest upset of the championships, and possibly one of the biggest surprise victories in the history of the event, when she won the women’s discus on the fourth day of the meet.
The 25-year-old Tausaga-Collins had entered the meet with a season best that was nearly five meters less than U.S. teammate Valarie Allman and she was sitting in last place in the 12-thrower field after the first two rounds of the final before raising her personal best to 65.56 (215-1) on her third throw to vault into fifth place. The move into the top eight also qualified her for an all-important three more throws in the competition.
After fouling on her fourth throw, she was still in fifth place when she stepped into the ring for her fifth attempt. She then unleashed a throw of 69.49 (228-0) that added just under four meters to the personal best she had set two rounds earlier.
Olympic champion Allman, who had the three longest throws of the competition through the end of four rounds, had a 64.60 (211-11) throw on her fifth attempt. And after her sixth — and final — effort measured 68.61 (225-1), Tausaga-Collins got off a throw of 68.36 (224-3) to complete an unexpected victory.
Allman finished second at 69.23 (227-1) after having four of the top five throws in the competition and defending champion Bin Feng of China placed third at 68.20 (223-9).
“I had seen some things in practice, but it wasn’t steady enough,” Tausaga-Collins said when Lewis Johnson of NBC Sports asked her where her fifth-round throw had come from. “And if you saw the first couple of rounds, I wasn’t going to make the final. And then I had a [foul] and my coach was like, ‘at this point, we go guns blazing and see what happens.’ We see things in practice and it’s been hit or miss. And he’s like, ‘maybe this is the time it hits,’ and it happened!”
Clutch time: One of the things that made these World Championships so entertaining for me were the number of horizontal jumping and throwing events in which the gold medalists won their event on their fifth or sixth attempt of the competition.
In addition to Tausaga-Collins in the women’s discus, Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso and Ethan Katzberg of Canada produced their winning efforts in the fifth round of the men’s triple jump and hammer throw, respectively.
Athletes who won gold medals on their final attempts were Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece in the men’s long jump, Daniel Stahl of Sweden in the men’s discus, Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela in the women’s triple jump, and Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan in the women’s javelin.
Rojas, one of the biggest favorites in the meet, bounded from eighth place to first in the women’s triple when her 15.08 (49-5¾) leap improved upon her previous best of 14.33 (47-0¼).
Olympic champion Stahl had taken the lead in the fourth round of the men’s discus with a throw of 69.37 (227-7), but had fallen into second place in the sixth round when defending champion Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia improved to 70.02 (229-9).
However, he responded with a championship record of 71.46 (234-5) on the final throw of the competition to win his second World title and first since 2019.
“I thought, what the hell, now I’m going to answer directly” Stahl said in a Reuters post. “It was just to dig in for king and country. I’m very proud of how I handled it. This is my best throw ever. It’s very cool.”
He then added that “It’s like I got a bit of ‘sisu’ in me,” using a Finnish word for fighting spirit. “I’m not going to give up, instead I’m going to get bigger in the moments.”
Striking early: Chase Ealey of the U.S. and Ivana Vuleta of Serbia were two athletes who put up big early marks in the finals of their respective events in Budapest while on their way to victories in the women’s shot put and long jump, respectively.
The 29-year-old Ealey was the defending champion in the women’s shot put, but she had struggled this season in comparison to last year as she tinkered with her technique in an effort to improve her performances in the long run.
After winning her first two meets of the outdoor season and registering a season best of 20.06 (65-9¾) in the HALPLUS meet in Halle, Germany on May 20, she had been beaten in seven of nine meets and finished fourth in the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships on July 8 with a best of 18.62 (61-1¼).
But she popped a 20.35 (66-9¼) effort in the first round in Budapest, before registering a 20.04 (65-9) mark in the fourth round and a 20.43 (67-0½) put in the fifth.
Sarah Mitton of Canada hit a season best of 20.08 (65-10½) in the fifth round to finish second, and Lijiao Gong of China placed third at 19.69 (64-7¼) to earn her eighth medal in the World Championships.
Vuleta, 33, had won one of six meets prior to the World Championships, finished third in three others, and seventh in the other two.
Yet she took the lead in Budapest with a jump of 7.05 (23-1¾) to start the second round, and spanned 6.91 (22-8) in the fourth round to equal the best jump of second-place Tara Davis-Woodhall of the U.S.
That was followed by a national outdoor record of 7.14 (23-5¼) in the fifth round that topped the previous national record of 7.10 (23-3½) that she had set in 2016.
While Davis-Woodhall’s 6.91 best held up for second place, Alina Rotaru-Kottmann of Romania moved from sixth place to third when her final jump measured 6.88 (22-7).
Vuleta had won the World Athletics Indoor Championships in 2018 and ’22, but her highest finish in previous global title meets contested outdoors were bronze medals in the 2013 and ’15 World Championships, and in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“It has been a long, long, long ride," Vuleta said in a Reuters post. "Every medal, every final is really special but at this age it is really hard to keep everything together.”
She then added, “I knew I was ready and I will deliver in the right moment. Finally, I did something I was dreaming of for so long. I am so emotional, this medal is really heavy. I enjoyed every single moment in this competition. After so many years and so many medals, I just knew I had to have one gold from an outdoor championships.”
Getting ahead of myself: I have to admit that I thought Anna Hall of the U.S. was in the driver’s seat in the heptathlon after defending World and two-time defending Olympic champion Nafi Thiam of Belgium withdrew from the World Championships due to Achilles tendon issues.
Yet it was Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain who turned in a stellar second day to overtake first-day leader Hall for the gold medal.
Hall, the bronze medalist in last year’s meet with a score of 6,755 points, had smashed that best with a 6,988 total in the Hypomeeting competition in Gotzis, Austria in late May that moved her to fifth on the all-time performer list.
Johnson had finished second in Gotzis with 6,556 points, which was her highest score since winning the 2019 World title with a national record of 6,981. She had sustained two major injuries since then, including a ruptured Achilles tendon that prevented her from competing in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.
The 30-year-old Johnson-Thompson trailed Hall by 93 points after the first day, but she picked up 112 points on her when she spanned 6.54 (21-5½) to Hall’s 6.19 (20-3¾) in the long jump to start the second day, and she added another 24 points to her lead when she threw the javelin 46.14 (151-4) to Hall’s 44.88 (147-3).
However, her 43-point advantage over Hall in the overall standings was far from comfortable entering the 800 as the American excels in that event.
Needing to pick up only 44 points in that event to win the title, the 22-year-old Hall pushed the pace and ran an outstanding 2:04.09. But Johnson-Thompson never let her get too far ahead of her and clocked a personal best of 2:05.67 to only give up 23 points of her lead and win the gold medal by a 6,740 to 6,720 margin.
Anouk Vetter of the Netherlands placed third with 6,501 points.
“I just knew I could prove to myself and prove to all the people that I could still do it," Johnson-Thompson said in a Reuters post. "This is the culmination of so much hard work.
“I'm so happy I'm crying. I can't help it. Today I know if I believed in myself I could do it. I haven't run those sort of times for four years but the last lap was amazing. I can't take it in, it's making me emotional."
The showdown that wasn’t: Running to set a world record in completely different than running to win a global title race.
That was abundantly clear in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase in Budapest as defending Olympic and World champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco ran away from world-record-holder Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia in the final 150 meters of the race.
The 22-year-old Girma had set a world indoor record of 7:23.81 in the 3,000 meters in February, lowered the world record in the steeplechase to 7:52.11 in the Meeting de Paris Diamond League meet on June 9, and then run a personal best of 3:29.51 in the 1,500 on June 30.
But he could never break away from the 27-year-old El Bakkali in the final. After leading the field through the 2,000 meters in 5:34.29, Girma ran the next 400 meters in 60.75. He followed that with a 58.63 split for the next 400, but El Bakkali moved past him as they approached the final water jump and the Moroccan was up by nearly a second as he entered the home straightaway.
El Bakkali’s winning time of 8:03.53 left him nearly two seconds ahead of Girma (8:05.44), but that margin could been larger had he not eased off during the final 20 meters of the race to savor his victory.
“After winning in Eugene last year, I am really proud to bring home another gold,” El Bakkali said in a Reuters post. “I had great preparations for these championships but today’s field was very strong with athletes like Lamecha.”
He then added that “I came ready and prepared and I believed I could win. This medal gives me additional motivation for the Olympic Games in Paris. I want to win there too.”
Youth will be served: The 400 meters provided one of the bigger surprises of the men’s meet as 21-year-old Antonio Watson of Jamaica won the event that had been billed as showdown between Stephen Gardiner of the Bahamas and Wayde van Niekirk of South Africa.
The 27-year-old Gardiner had missed last year’ World Championships with a foot injury, but the Olympic champion had run a yearly world-leading time of 43.74 in the Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Szekesfehervar, Hungary on July 18.
The 31-year-old Van Niekirk entered the World Championships in the midst of his best season since 2017 when he had won his second consecutive world title.
But things did not go well for Gardiner or van Niekirk in Budapest.
First, van Niekirk looked lackluster in finishing third in 44.65 seconds in the first of three semifinals in a race in which Watson lowered his personal best from 44.54 to 44.13.
Then Gardiner pulled up with an apparent leg injury in the third semifinal after leading the race coming out of the second turn.
With Gardiner out and van Niekirk not looking like he had when he won three Diamond League meets in June and July, the final that was held two days later had a wide-open feel to it.
Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain, who had set a European record of 44.26 in winning the second semifinal, had the lead entering the home straightaway of the final. But Watson began to reel him with 50 meters left in the race and he passed him with about 20 meters remaining.
Although Watson’s winning time of 44.22 was slower than his semifinal clocking, it left him nearly a tenth of a second in front of Hudson-Smith at 44.31. American Quincy Hall finished third in a personal best of 44.37. Van Niekirk placed eighth in 45.11 before being moved up to seventh after Kirani James of Grenada was disqualified for a lane violation after finishing fifth in 44.52.
Watson’s victory was the second by a Jamaican man in the 400 in the World Championships and the first since the inaugural meet in Helsinki in 1983 when Bert Cameron won the title. In addition, Watson became the first Jamaican to medal in a men’s sprint event in the World Championships since Usain Bolt finished third behind Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman of the U.S. in the 100 in the 2017 meet in London.
“It was a good race, although I did not execute it as coach [Glen] Mills planned,” Watson said in a World Athletics post, “In the last 50, I didn’t look at the other athletes, I was focusing on myself only.”
He then added that this has been “an amazing season for me. After winning the world youth title in 2017, it is amazing to win the gold medal at my first senior worlds."
Unusual strategy: Keni Harrison of the U.S. threw caution to the wind when it came to running in the women’s 100-meter hurdles in Budapest and it might have cost her in the final.
The 29-year-old Harrison entered the meet with the second-fastest time in the world this year at 12.31 seconds and then promptly won her first-round heat in 12.24, which was equal to the fourth-fastest effort in history.
When Lewis Johnson of NBC Sports asked her about why she had put forth such an effort in the first round, Harrison basically said that her coach, Bobby Kersee, had instructed her to run every round like it was a final. With the first round, semifinals, and final being run a day apart of each other, Kersee might have felt that running one hard race a day was not asking too much of Harrison.
But the end result was that she won her semifinal in 12.33 before finishing third in 12.46 in a tightly contested final in which Danielle Willliams of Jamaica and Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico finished first and second in times of 12.43 and 12.44.
In contrast to Harrison’s regression through the rounds, Williams clocked 12.51 to finish third in her qualifying heat and 12.50 to place second in her semifinal and 12.43 in the final.
All three times were season bests for the 30-year-old Williams, who had won the World title in the 2015 meet in Beijing.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” she said in a World Athletics post. “I came out here knowing that I could win, but I would have to give everything I had. I still don't believe I won against such a stellar field.
“My starts have always been good. The finish is usually my problem, but I spoke to my sister yesterday and she said I need to make sure to race over all the hurdles because I wasn't going flat out through all of them. Today, I was determined to take it all the way.”
She added that “When I won in 2015 it was unbelievable, but this took a lot of hard work, a lot of years of toil and injuries, and losing my confidence and battling to get back to this stage. It's awesome. Jamaica is a proud country and we love to win. I love to win.”
Depth galore: The decathlon and the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase were the two events that produced the most high-quality marks in the meet.
In addition to Pierce LePage of Canada moving to sixth on the all-time performer list in the decathlon with his winning score of 8,909 points, bronze medalist Lindon Victor of Grenada moved to 15th with his 8,756 total, and Karl Tilga of Estonia moved to 24th with his fourth-place score of 8,681.
In addition, it was the first decathlon in history in which the top seven finishers scored 8,500 points or more and the first nine broke 8,400.
The women’s steeplechase might have been even more impressive on a statistical level than the decathlon, thanks to the Kenyan Beatrice Chepkoech’s decision to push the pace.
Although the world-record-holder was unable to repel the charge of Winfred Mutile Yavi of Bahrain over the last lap of the race, her front running was instrumental in Yavi running the fifth-fastest time in history and moving to fourth on the all-time performer list with her winning time of 8:54.29.
In addition to Yavi, 19-year-old Kenyan Faith Cherotich placed third in 9:00.69 to move to 12th on the all-time performer list, with fifth-place Alice Finto of France moving to 19th with her 9:06.15 clocking and sixth-place Marusa Mismas Zrimsek of Slovenia now ranking 20th with her time of 9:06.37.
Gold rush: The men’s and women’s 25- and 35-kilometer walking event turned out to be a gold bonanza for Spain as Alvaro Martin won the two men’s events and compatriot Maria Perez did likewise on the women’s side.
Martin, who had finished fourth in the 20-kilometer walk in the Olympics in 2021, opened the championships by winning the 20k event on the morning of the first day of competition with a time of 1:17:32 and he took the 35k event with a national-record time of 2:24:30 five days later.
The 29-year-old Martin broke away from the lead pack with five kilometers left in the 20k race and his decisive move in the 35k event came with about a kilometer to go.
Perez matched the double victory of Kimberly Garcia of Peru in last year’s meet by clocking 1:26:51 in the 20k race and a championship record of 2:38:40 in the 35k event that was contested in conjunction with the men’s race.
Like Martin, the 27-year-old Perez broke away from the lead pack with five kilometers left in the women’s 20k race. But she took a different tactic in the women’s 35k event, first opening a three-second advantage over second-place Garcia at the 20-kilometer mark before finishing more than two minutes in front of the silver medalist.
“I am so tired,” Martin said in a World Athletics post following the 35k race. “I was fourth in the Olympic Games and it was very tough to get so close to an Olympic medal, so it’s wonderful now to be a double world champion in Budapest. I see Maria is first too in the women’s race so today is a great day for Spain.”
Looking forward: For those who are wondering, the track and field portion of the Olympic Games in Paris will be contested from August 1-11 of next year.
The 2025 World Athletics Championships will be held in Tokyo from Sept. 13-21.