Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i AW - Athletics Weekly Magazine

The man we have all come to see answers the question with a question. “Do you really want to know the answer?” he says and the atmosphere in the room crackles ever so slightly. His audience leans in. He is responding to the query of why, given all the advances in sports science, nutrition, technology and innovation, the world's best male sprinters aren't closing in on the fastest 100m times in history. It's a good question. Of the current crop, Olympic and world silver medallist Kishane Thompson is the fastest with his PB of 9.75 but it only puts him sixth on the all-time list. The five marks ahead of him were all run between 2009 and 2015 and the 9.70 barrier was last broken in 2012. So, after the…

This has not been a straightforward year for Noah Lyles. Injury hampered his build-up to the defence of his world 100m title and he ultimately had to settle for third. Yet the 200m is where he feels more at home and in Tokyo he was still able to come away with gold, his fourth in a row in that event. “As it was happening, it was like: ‘Wow, we're really here. We're really at the fourth one’,” he tells AW. “I'm 28 now, my position in the sport has changed so much from my first one in 2019 to where I was the young gun kid, and now I'm the old man who's racing against the young gun kids. [That young gun kid from 2019] would be so proud. He'd…

Marco Airale doesn't like to watch his athletes’ major races from the side of the track. Instead, he prefers to linger in the stadium warm-up area. It's where you'll find a lot of sprint coaches during the big moments and this was the biggest of the 34-year-old's coaching career to date. As the announcer introduced the competitors for the women's 200m final at the world championships in Tokyo's national stadium, the Italian let his mind wander. He thought back to December, when he had hit “the bottom” after a day in which two of the high profile British athletes he coached - Olympic 100m and 200m finalist Daryll Neita and then European U23 100m champion Jeremiah Azu – left his training group at the same time, telling him of their…

Jake Wightman had literally just stepped off the podium in Tokyo and was packing his medal into its presentation box when he sat down with AW at the national stadium to reflect on an extraordinary few days. Seeing his name etched into the silver, what had happened was finally beginning to sink in. Since becoming world 1500m champion in 2022, the sport had not been kind to the 31-year-old. Injury robbed him of the chance to defend that title in 2023 and, even more painfully, snatched away his Olympic dream at the very last minute last summer. Even in February of this year, a torn meniscus needed surgery and then, as he prepared for the British trials, sickness ruled him out of competing in Birmingham and took selection for these…

Beatrice Chebet is firmly establishing herself as the one to beat when it comes to women's distance running on the track. One year on from winning 5000m and 10,000m gold at the Paris Olympics, in Tokyo she became only the third woman in history to complete that double at a world championships. In both races, she employed a devastating closing kick to leave her rivals trailing in her wake. Chebet now holds both Olympic and world 5000m and 10,000m titles, along with the world cross country title, world road 5km title and world records at 5000m, 10,000m and the 5km. However, as she sat down with AW in Japan on the day after her win in the 25-lap event, the 25-year-old made it clear that her work is far from…

The women's heptathlon in Tokyo had it all. A long-time contender in Anna Hall finally winning the gold she craved, two experienced athletes – Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Taliyah Brooks – proving so inseparable that they shared the bronze medal and, in between all of that, the emergence of an Irish talent with the potential to make a major mark on the sport. To those who follow the combined events, Kate O'Connor is not a new name and, before this year, the 24-year-old already had a Commonwealth silver from the 2022 Games. After finishing 14th at the Paris Olympics last summer, this year has represented a major breakthrough, and the momentum from winning bronze at the European Indoor Championships, silver at the World Indoor Championships and then gold at the World…

MEN 100m Oblique Seville (JAM) 9.77 PB Kishane Thompson (JAM) 9.82 Noah Lyles (USA) 9.89 SB 200m Noah Lyles (USA) 19.52 Kenny Bednarek (USA) 19.58 SB Bryan Levell (JAM) 19.64 PB 400m Busang Collen Kebinatshipi (BOT) 43.53 WL NR Jereem Richards (TTO) 43.72 NR Bayapo Ndori (BOT) 44.20 SB 800m Emmanuel Wanyonyi (KEN) 1:41.86 CR Djamel Sedjati (ALG) 1:41.90 SB Marco Arop (CAN) 1:41.95 SB 1500m Isaac Nader (POR) 3:34.10 Jake Wightman (GBR) 3:34.12 Reynold Cheruiyot (KEN) 3:34.25 5000m Cole Hocker (USA) 12:58.30 Isaac Kimeli (BEL) 12:58.78 SB Jimmy Gressier (FRA) 12:59.33 10,000m Jimmy Gressier (FRA) 28:55.77 SB Yomif Kejelcha (ETH) 28:55.83 SB Andreas Almgren (SWE) 28:56.02 3000m Steeplechase Geordie Beamish (NZL) 8:33.88 Soufiane El Bakkali (MAR) 8:33.95 Edmund Serem (KEN) 8:34.56 Marathon Alphonce Felix Simbu (TAN) 2:09:48 SB Amanal Petros (GER) 2:09:48 Iliass Aouani (ITA) 2:09:53 110m hurdles Cordell Tinch (USA) 12.99…

Japan was a transformative place for Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. It's where she first experienced a senior world championships and, now, it will go down in history as the location of her last. At 38, she still reached the women's 100m final, coming sixth, and ran the opening leg of the 4x100m relay in which the Jamaican team won silver. It was the 17th world championships medal of a career (10 of them have been gold) that also featured eight Olympic honours (three of those being gold). The fact that she was still a sprinting force to be reckoned with, at her ninth world championships and 18 years on from that debut in Osaka back in 2007, speaks volumes. What will she do next? Away from the track, she has been an…

If there was one sprinter who seemed to take great strides forward in Tokyo, it was Melissa Jefferson-Wooden. After an injury-hit 2024, the 24-year-old has been the dominant force in women's 100m running and proved that with a gold medal-winning run of 10.61 that broke the championships record and also put her fourth on the all-time list. Only Florence Griffith Joyner, Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce have gone faster. Jefferson-Wooden had a long to do list in Tokyo, though, and she also rose to the occasion over the 200m, proving to be a commanding winner as she strode to victory by almost half a second in a time of 21.68 that was the sixth-fastest ever and becoming the first woman since Fraser-Pryce in 2013 to win world 100m, 200m and…

Christine Ohuruogu sums it up nicely. “I don't think there are enough words or superlatives to explain what we saw,” says the former Olympic and world champion as she contemplates a women's 400m final in Tokyo that sent tremors through the sport. But for the rain that fell on Japan's national stadium on that fateful evening last month, one of athletics’ longest-standing – and most controversial – world records would surely have fallen. The mark of 47.60 set by East Germany's Marita Koch back in 1985, which is viewed with more than some suspicion given the nation's history of doping, had long seemed almost permanently out of reach. But that perception was changed completely by the events of September 18. The headlines, understandably, all went towards Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone after a…

There's a lot to consider about the performance of the British team in Tokyo. We saw some really good, some bad and a little bit of ugly over the course of the nine days of competition. Let's start on a positive note. The silver medals for Jake Wightman in the 1500m and Amy Hunt in the 200m were outstanding and both great stories in their own right, plus I think Keely Hodgkinson winning bronze after such a difficult injury-affected year was remarkable. However, I think that all of the attention being placed on the Olympic champion meant that the achievement of her training partner Georgia Hunter Bell winning 800m silver was slightly overlooked. After Keely had come back from such a long break and hit the ground running so well,…

They say success at the top level of sport can come down to the finest of margins – and nowhere was that demonstrated better than the men's and women's marathons in Tokyo. Both events were not only settled by sprint finishes on the track at the national stadium but, in the case of the men's race, remarkably the margin was tighter than in the men's 100m final. Alphonce Felix Simbu's final charge saw him finish just 0.03 ahead of Germany's Amanol Petros on the line – the smallest winning margin ever in a global championships marathon – as both men were given a finishing time of 2:09:48. Simbu was just one of two Tanzanian athletes competing in Tokyo and upgraded his world bronze from London in 2017, becoming the first…

The best sportspeople possess the ability to make time slow down. Whether it's Lionel Messi spotting a pass no-one else can see, Carlos Alcaraz threading a forehand down the line or Simone Biles travelling through the air in a way which previously might have seemed inconceivable, they are all seemingly unhurried. Devoid of panic. In the zone. Mondo Duplantis works like that, too. Like all sportspeople, he has an unusual job, but sprinting as fast as you can, carrying along pole, before thrusting it into the ground and then hurling yourself upside down into the sky is a particularly unusual and difficult art to master. Yet master it the 25-year-old has and, in doing so, he has discovered away to create magic. Packed stadia across the world have witnessed what…

ONE World record Mondo Duplantis (SWE), men's pole vault, 6.30m NINE Championship records Melissa Jefferson-Wooden (USA) women's 100m, 10.61 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA) women's 400m, 47.78 Lilian Odira (KEN) women's 800m, 1:54.62 Emmanuel Wanyonyi (KEN) men's 800m, 1:41.86 Faith Cherotich (KEN) women's 3000m steeplechase, 8:51.59 Mondo Duplantis (SWE) men's pole vault, 6.30m Ethan Katzberg (CAN) men's hammer, 84.70m United States (USA) women's 4x400m, 3:16.61 United States (USA) mixed 4x400m, 3:08.80 NINE Area records Africa South Africa (RSA) mixed 4x400m, 3:11.16 Europe Mondo Duplantis (SWE) men's pole vault, 6.30m North America, Central America and Caribbean Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA) women's 400m, 47.78 Camryn Rogers (CAN) women's hammer, 80.51m Ethan Katzberg (CAN) men's hammer, 84.70m Alegna Gonzalez (MEX) women's 20km race walk, 1:26:06 Oceania Jessica Hull (AUS) women's 800m, 1:57.15 Hamish Kerr (NZL) men's…

AGE: 33 COACH: SCOTT JOHNSON Since his spectacular Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) victory in August, former British Army Captain Tom Evans has been working to a military-style schedule to accommodate a multitude of media and sponsor commitments. Yet, after a calculated and dominant performance over approximately 170km/10,000m elevation gain, it's his baby daughter Phoebe that stops him in his tracks: “Sorry! We had a poonami…” he says, apologising for the slightly delayed start to this interview. Phoebe won't know it yet, but the joys of fatherhood coupled with an altered mindset have been transformative for her dad in 2025. He came third at the UTMB in 2022, but failed to finish in 2023 and 2024. “I was snatching at things,” he reflects. “I felt like I needed to win more…

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A sign of the times I've seen some people complaining about the amount of coverage that pop star Harry Styles received for running a sub three-hour marathon in Berlin – and how he got more attention than those who were competing at the World Championships in Tokyo. While I can appreciate that point of view and understand why it might cause some frustration, surely any attention that the sport can generate is a good thing? To me, one of the best things about running – and indeed track and field athletics as a rule – is that anyone can do it. It's a sport for all. Was what Harry was trying to do of a comparable level what the world's elite were striving for? Of course not, but that doesn't…

Just last month, a statue of Steve Jones was unveiled in his home town of Ebbw Vale and, with the 2025 edition of the Chicago Marathon about to take place, it seems fitting to look back to October of 1984, when the Welshman broke the world record in the event. One year previously his debut over the distance had not gone to plan Stateside, being forced to withdraw after 17.5 miles due to an ankle injury. He even offered to repay his expenses to the race organisers. After the disappointment of finishing eighth in the 10,000m at the LA Olympics, he arrived in Chicago with a point to prove and his record-breaking run of 2:08:05 certainly did that. The race was initially anticipated to be a showdown between two marathon…

It was almost as if the weather gods didn't want the world championships to end. The rainstorm that pummelled the national stadium on the final night of action in Tokyo did its best to keep things going for as long as possible but, despite the lengthy delay caused by the conditions, the men's discus did eventually bring the nine-day party to a close. At the end of it all, that often overused saying of: “Don't be sad that it's over, be glad that it happened” rarely felt more appropriate – and more reflective of a national mood. There have been editions of the World Athletics Championships in years past when the event has perhaps felt more like an inconvenience to the host city than an enhancement but that certainly wasn't…

With roughly 60m covered in the men's 100m final, Oblique Seville began to believe. His fellow Jamaican, Kishane Thompson, had flown out of the blocks and looked like he was about to make up for the pain of narrowly missing Olympic gold last summer. But the 24-year-old had his own disappointments to banish and, in front of the watching Usain Bolt, his strong finish took him to the top of the world, clocking a PB of 9.77 (0.3) to beat compatriot Thompson (9.82) to the line and leave Olympic champion Noah Lyles to settle for third, despite the American's season's best of 9.89. Tokyo was already a special place for the winner, given that he made his senior international debut at the Olympics there four years ago. He reached the…

He still shares a room with his older brother. He owns a Hyundai i30, not just because he likes the way it looks but because it has “good fuel economy”. He's a straight A student with a keen interest in studying sports psychology when he goes to university. Oh, and he's also being billed as sprinting's next great superstar. While they know all about him in his native Australia, the world at large got its first glimpse of Gout Gout on the senior global stage in Tokyo. The 17-year-old Queenslander has already made huge progress in his short career – breaking the Australian record that had stood since the 1968 Olympics and also winning the senior national title – but his negotiation of this next big step made for fascinating…

Marileidy Paulino believes the world championships 400m final shows that the world record will soon be within reach. Rather than any disappointment over being dethroned as world champion, the Olympic gold medallist says that the adjustment of some small details will make for even greater performances. “I'm super proud of what I've done in the last five years and I'm certain that I can continue to lower my time,” she told AW. “There are small details I need to work on in order to get to my objective.” Of the Tokyo performance, she added: “I wasn't actually that tired. I worked hard but I felt good about it. I don't see it as a rivalry [with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone]. I compete against the clock and that's what I want to continue…

Andreas Almgren didn't waste any time. Within two and a half hours of touching back down in Sweden on his return journey from Tokyo, he was to be found out running. “A 20km,” he says. “I landed in the morning and I felt that by the evening I would be so tired after the trip and the jetlag, so I might as well get going.” There is no time to sit back and enjoy the feeling of being a world 10,000m medallist. The 30-year-old is now going in hot pursuit of the European half marathon record of 59:13, set by Switzerland's Julien Wanders in 2019, at the Valencia half marathon on October 26. It's a tall order, given that this will be only the second half marathon of his career…

In a World Championships full of surprises, Julia Paternain's bronze medal in the women's marathon was possibly the most unexpected result of all. Born in Mexico, raised in England, based in America and representing Uruguay, she was one of the most interesting stories, too. “My phone blew up after the race. Even the president of Uruguay reached out to me. It's been crazy!” she says, on the reaction to a race that saw her clock 2:27:23 to become the South American nation's first-ever World Championships medallist. The only two runners to beat her were 2021 Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya and marathon world record-breaker Tigist Assefa of Ethiopia. Going into Tokyo, Paternain was ranked a mere 288th in the world, too. I meet the 26-year-old at her hotel in…

CROUSER'S GOLDEN COMEBACK It was as if he had never been away. Ryan Crouser had not competed all year thanks to an elbow injury but the three-time Olympic champion made it to Tokyo and promptly secured a third consecutive world shot put title. His fellow American John Godina and Switzerland's Werner Gunthor are the only other men to have three world titles in the event and Crouser will move out on his own if he can add to that tally in Beijing. “This is the one I am most proud of,” said Crouser, who won with a best throw of 22.34m. “This is my first time throwing hard since September last year, so I really didn't know what kind of shape I was in. It was kind of a ‘fake…

Paul Freary Products Editor I enjoyed two particular performances. The first was from Max Burgin in the men's 800m. Still only 23, having suffered from unfortunate injuries in previous seasons, I was excited to see him running at full fitness. He ran with such confidence, and I think making the final would have been a great performance, but to finish where he did, in the fastest 800m race in history (with everyone running under 1:44), he showed what an exciting prospect he is for the coming years. The second moment was Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Okay, he wasn't fully fit and didn't make it out of the rounds in the 1500m but, in the 5000m final, he took up the reigns and was in the mix with two laps to go. Ultimately,…

Evans, who won the Arc of Attrition (80km/2300m+) in Cornwall and Tenerife Bluetrail (110km/6250m+) in early 2025, says he made two major changes to training this year compared to previous years. One was additional fuelling to help train his stomach and aid recovery; the other was opting for passive heat acclimation (hot bath or sauna) instead of active heat acclimation (such as hiking/running in hot conditions). “I found that training at such high volume, active heat acclimation just destroyed me,” he explains. “I was so tired and not recovering, so we swapped that to passive heat acclimation. I didn't do any active heat sessions in this build, and although the race didn't end up being hot, I felt way more prepared and far less tired.” ◆ Monday: (am) 2hr run…