The world’s top athletes will descend on Tokyo this weekend for the pinnacle of the athletics season, with nine days’ worth of action at the World Athletics Championships to decide the destiny of 49 world titles.
The Championships kick off on Saturday 13 September and run until Sunday 21 September, with over 2,000 athletes vying for a chance at glory.
Many of the biggest contenders for victory in Tokyo are British, looking to cap off a fine season for many Team GB athletes and build on the successes of the Paris Olympics last year.
Here’s a run-down of the major names to watch in Tokyo:
Keely Hodgkinson
It would be remiss to not say 23-year-old Keely Hodgkinson is Britain’s golden hope for glory in Tokyo. The reigning 800m Olympic champion and silver world medallist from 2023 is the hot favourite to seal gold this month, despite a lengthy injury layoff with two torn hamstrings.
However, she returned in smoking-hot form at the Diamond League in Silesia last month, setting a new meeting record of one minute and 54.74 seconds, after 376 days out of competion. It was the second-fastest time of her career.
She followed it up with another winning time in Lausanne, and it seems that only a real calamity can deny her a world title in Tokyo. Keep an eye out too for Georgia Hunter Bell, the Olympic 1500m bronze medallist, who is set to run in the 800m alongside Hodgkinson, and who finished third in Lausanne.
Josh Kerr
Reigning 1500m world champion Josh Kerr is in a strong position to defend his title from Budapest two years ago, and will hope to have learned the lesson of Paris last year, when American Cole Hocker took advantage of his duel with fierce rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen to sneak past and claim the gold.
The pressure is ramped up this year, with Kerr a favourite for the title after Ingebrigtsen strained an Achilles tendon earlier this year. The Norwegian is aiming to return to competition in Tokyo but his disrupted season may cost him, and it will be interesting to see how Kerr handles the extra weight of expectation this time out.
Matt Hudson-Smith
30-year-old Matt Hudson-Smith has been knocking on the door of a maiden 400m global title for a while now, after picking up a bronze at Worlds in 2022, silver in 2023, and another silver at the Paris Olympic Games last summer.
The man who beat him to gold in Paris, Quincy Hall, is not competing in Tokyo after pulling out with injury. But Hudson-Smith may have competition from a challenger much closer to home in compatriot Charlie Dobson, who recorded a personal best of 44.14 to beat him at the London Diamond League in July.
Regardless, Hudson-Smith - the fifth-fastest man of all time over this distance - is among the favourites for gold this time out, having come within 0.09s of sealing the world title in 2023. He has been in strong form this year, winning two of the the three ‘Long Sprints’ categories at the aborted Grand Slam Track series earlier in the season, as well as the Diamond League in Eugene.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson
British heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson will renew her rivalry with Paris Olympic champion Nafi Thiam, with the pair - who have split the past four world titles between them - the favourites once again in Tokyo.
Johnson-Thompson was victorious in Budapest in 2023, with Thiam absent through injury, and the stakes are high for the defending champion, who has demons to exorcise in Tokyo. A devastating injury setback during the delayed 2021 Olympics, following an Achilles rupture the previous year, left her fearing for her career and obliterated any hopes of another medal at the Games.
She persevered after sustaining a calf tear on the track but had to go back to the drawing board once more, rebuilding her career. Three years later and with another world title and Olympic silver medal under her belt, she returns to Japan one of the out-and-out favourites at her seventh world championships.
Morgan Lake
28-year-old Morgan Lake may not be as much of a household name compared to others on this list, but the high jumper is an outside contender for a medal in Tokyo after an excellent season.
She set a new British record when she came third the Zurich Diamond League Finals at the end of last month, becoming the first British woman to clear two metres.
Only six women have cleared two metres this season, meaning Lake is a strong contender to join favourites Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Nicola Olyslagers on the podium and improve her fourth-place finish from Budapest two years ago.
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