The World Athletics Championships kick off in Tokyo on Saturday, spanning nine days to finish on Sunday week (September 21st).
Twenty-eight Irish athletes are set to compete in Japan, our largest World Championship showing to date.
With plenty of action due to take place over the coming days, here are the five events (with and without Irish involvement) that you won’t want to miss.
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*all times Irish
RM Block
100m
Sunday, September 14th – women’s final 2.13pm, men’s final 2.20pm
Not long to wait for these latest sprint showdowns, both finals set for Sunday afternoon Irish time. Women’s Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred from St Lucia faces a formidable challenge from Melissa Jefferson-Wooden (US), while two-time defending men’s champion Noah Lyles (US) faces off again Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, winning by five-thousandths of a second in Paris.
Men’s 1,500m
Wednesday, September 17th – final 2.20pm
There’s still some uncertainty about Jakob Ingebrigtsen given the star Norwegian hasn’t raced since the World Indoor Championships due to injury, but it will be another fascinating race. Cole Hocker from the US is out to prove his Olympic gold medal was no fluke, Britain’s Josh Kerr will be hoping to defend his title, and 20-year-old rising Dutch star Niels Laros has been blazing the Diamond League circuit.
Women’s 400m
Thursday, September 18th – final 2.24pm
Even in the absence of Rhasidat Adeleke, there’s plenty of intrigue here, starting with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The US superstar and world record holder in the 400m hurdles in focusing on the flat one-lap race, but will need to beat Olympic and World Champion Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic and Bahrain’s 2019 World Champion Salwa Eid Naser, the fastest in the world this year.
Men’s pole vault
Monday, September 15th – final 11.49am
No athlete draws attention to the field events more than Mondo Duplantis, the Swedish star arriving in Tokyo with a two-year unbeaten streak of 35 competitions which also saw him set three world records this year, taking it to 6.29m. But Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis matched Duplantis at 6.00m at the Diamond League Final in Zurich, the Swede only winning on countback. An upset is always possible in the pole vault, or a 6.30m from Duplantis perhaps?
Women’s heptathlon
Concluding Saturday, September 20th – 1.11pm
Kate O’Connor has already won a complete set of championship medals this year – bronze in the European Indoor pentathlon, World Indoor silver, and gold in the heptathlon at the World University Games – and her Irish record of 6,487 points ranks her fifth this season. Belgian Olympic champion Nafi Thiam and Britain’s World Champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson have yet to score this season, but the seven events over two days will unquestionably make for exciting viewing.
