Key events
Here’s the men’s 4×400 relay (Heat 1).
“Having succeeded, unlike Bob and Terry, in avoiding the score, I watched back the heptathlon on the iPlayer yesterday, which also allows skipping the studio punditry and those interviews on VT wherein athletes tell us they’ll be happy to medal with a PB,” emails Gary Naylor.
“Seeing a multi-disciplinary event play out in real time is such a privilege. You get to know the personalities, you see the competition and the camaraderie between them and you appreciate just how hard it is to go from high jump to shot-put with barely time to change shoes. It’s a shame it so often gets lost between track races.”
A statement from British Athletics, via the magic of social media:
“Unfortunately Abi Pawlett has withdrawn from the heptathlon as she is still suffering the after-effects of yesterday’s fall in the hurdles. We wish Abi a speedy recovery.”
The high jump in the men’s decathlon has also begun.
Meanwhile the athletes for the upcoming relays are pictured getting off the transfer buses from the much-maligned warm-up area.
Via Reuters, some quotes from Nafi Thiam of Belgium, who withdrew from the women’s heptathlon before this session.
“I’ve struggled with this heptathlon from the start. I tried to fight it and persevere, but it clearly didn’t work,” Thiam told Het Nieuwsblad. “I started this morning thinking I would fight until the end and not leave empty-handed because I’ve worked hard this year …
“I knew I could do something good here and fight for my place in the standings but that didn’t happen. So I’m disappointed, yes. This championship is a real black cloud.”
She had accused the Belgian athletics body of excluding her from their pre-championships camp in a row over image rights. The federation denied that. Thiam was asked whether the row had impacted her performances in Tokyo.
“It’s hard to quantify that,” she said. “Regardless of the reasons why I feel the way I do, the reality remains that I feel the way I do. So that doesn’t make a difference.”
Kate O’Connor of Ireland threw a PB of 53.06m at her first attempt in the javelin. Her second throw was over 50m too. Incredible performance.
It’s a throw of 40.51m for Johnson-Thompson at the second attempt.
She threw 45.49m at the Olympics last year. She will need a big performance in the closing 800m to get a medal.
Johnson-Thompson’s first effort places her fifth at the moment. Here comes No 2.
Hall, O’Connor, Brooks is the top three in the javelin in the women’s heptathlon right now.
Johnson-Thompson has thrown 38.82m with her first of three attempts in the javelin. She’s been pushed out of the medal positions for now.
Kate O’Connor of Ireland has mustered a phenomenal personal best of 53.06m.
Amy Hunt has a chat with the BBC after collecting her 200m medal.
“I think I went to sleep at 5.30am. The sun was up. It was a long night in anti-doping as well, so it wasn’t entirely all glamourous. There wasn’t many celebrations going on. It still definitely hasn’t sunk in. But this [the medal] is helping a lot.
“I said, if these girls are letting me come ninth in the 100m, something pretty special is coming in the 200. The way I was finishing the races, I was obviously coming through … A lot of the lessons the 100 taught me paid dividends in the 200.
“My coach loves numbers. It’s maths, physics, science … we’re using all the data we can, all the technology we can, to keep track of everything. We have all the numbers down. He knows what I’m about to run. He did predict I was going to do a 22.00 the other day, so to him it wasn’t a surprise. It gives me so much confidence … I knew if I could be with them off the turn, then it’s game over.
“Coming in as a really hot junior, making a big noise, making a big splash … it was then nice to take a back seat almost [studying for her degree and having injuries] and have that pressure taken off me … I was able to make a senior debut without the kind of weight and expectation that I probably might have had. It also taught me a lot, it taught me my strength.
“It’s taught me that I am stronger than I could possibly imagine and the team I have around me are world-beaters as well.”
The defending champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson is third with two heptathlon events remaining.
The 2024 Olympic silver medallist has 4874pts before the javelin throw and 800m on Saturday in a field led by American pair Anna Hall, on 5041 points, and Taliyah Brooks, with 4930.
Johnson-Thompson has a 50-point lead over fourth-placed Kate O’Connor of Ireland after the morning session’s long jump, where the Englishwoman was third-best with a 6.42m effort behind Brooks and Great Britain’s Jade O’Dowda.
Brooks reached a personal-best 6.79m, 30cm more than O’Dowda, who currently sits sixth after the Netherlands’ Sofie Dokter. Abigail Pawlett, Great Britain’s third entrant, is 15th.
According to reports in Belgium Nafi Thiam, who beat Johnson-Thompson to Olympic gold in Paris last summer, has withdrawn. She was placed eighth.
Thiam’s pre-championship build-up was marred by a row with her federation.
She told Belgian newspaper DH Les Sports+: “It was difficult from the beginning. I tried to fight, to go through these difficulties, but clearly it does not follow. I have trouble explaining it myself. Clearly my body is not happy. I don’t want to do anything stupid, because I think that now, finishing would be for the principle.”
Great Britain secured their second medal of the 2025 championships on Friday, when Amy Hunt stormed to 200m silver, adding to Jake Wightman’s second-place finish in the men’s 1500m final.
They could win medals in up to three events on the penultimate evening of the World Championships.
Hannah Nuttall will start the women’s 5000m final at 1.29pm UK time before Max Burgin goes for men’s 800m gold in his final, scheduled for 2.22pm. (PA Media)
Hats off to the digital content team for producing such a clear and user friendly timetable on the official website, by the way.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain will be up shortly for the javelin throw in the Women’s Heptathlon (from 11am)
The GB men will compete in Heat 2 of the men’s 4×400 relay at 11.46am, then the women will take the stage in Heat 1, scheduled for 12pm.
At 12.25pm it’s the men’s 4×100 (Heat 1) for GB, then it’s Heat 2 for the women’s team at 12.54pm.
The Women’s 800m Heptathlon is scheduled for 1.11pm, with Johnson-Thompson aiming for a medal, and the Women’s 5000m is locked in for 1.29pm UK time, with Hannah Nuttall on the start line.
Then the 23-year-old Halifax-born Max Burgin will go for glory in the men’s 800m: which is booked in for 2.22pm UK time. Cian McPhillips of Ireland qualified quickest for that race, so plenty to get excited about.
World Athletics has underscored its commitment to the “athlete experience” after some competitors at the world championships in Tokyo – including Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson – criticised warm-up logistics.
Yoyogi Park, where the main warm-up facility is located, is a two-and-half-kilometre drive from Japan National Stadium, a bus journey the PA news agency understands takes about 15 minutes.
The final call for competitors to board the bus is reportedly scheduled for 50 minutes to an hour before the start of each event. Athletes can also use an indoor straight at the stadium, including on days when they have more than one race in a session.
A World Athletics statement read: “The athlete experience is of utmost importance for World Athletics and the Local Organising Committee at these World Athletics Championships, and we have put a lot of consideration into their preparations within the constraints of locations and venues.
“This type of configuration is not unique – as we have seen from previous Olympic Games and other major athletics championships.
“For Tokyo 25, we ensured that team leaders were fully briefed at a site visit in March in order for teams to have ample time to prepare – and the rules regarding warm up, call room, and transport apply to every team and every athlete without exception.
“The brilliant performances we have seen so far from the athletes speak for themselves.”
On Friday, after qualifying for Sunday’s 800m final, Hodgkinson said: “I think the whole warm-up situation, you’re warming up for almost two hours. It can be quite draining, so maybe we will have to look at doing something better come Sunday.
“Other than that I’m happy to be in my fifth world final in a row. That’s an achievement in itself. I’m really happy to do that and be in the picture for another medal, hopefully.”
Only athletes are allowed to board the bus for the stadium, turning it into a kind of call room on wheels. Last Saturday, speaking after their 1500m heats, American middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz told Citius Mag: “It’s a solid 10-minute bus ride of just sitting. It’s just weird. It’s definitely not usual, but we’re all in the same boat.”
The Jamaica coach Stephen Francis was more critical. In an interview with Jamaica’s TVJ on Saturday, Francis described what he felt were a number of logistical issues, including the “distance from the stadium to the warm-up track”.
He added: “Those areas of a meet are not befitting the top meet of the year for World Athletics.”
According to the website of the manufacturer Mondo, the warm-up track for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (located next to the stadium) was dismantled and reinstalled at Aichi University in 2022. (PA Media)
The official schedule informs us that Day 8 (Evening Session) starts in 40mins.
So we’ve got time to recap Hunt’s sensational silver from yesterday.
Read Sean Ingle’s report here:
Sean Ingle
Amy Hunt is just collecting her silver medal. She is looking a little tired, which is not surprising given she got to bed at 5am this morning, and will not be running in the heats of the women’s 4x100m relay later today.
Thiam withdraws from heptathlon
Nafi Thiam – one of the defending champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s key rivals – withdrew on Saturday withdrew from the heptathlon on Saturday after an underwhelming long jump left Belgium’s triple Olympic champion with little chance of a medal.
The 31-year-old, who won world titles in 2017 and 2022, failed to get over the six-metre mark with her two legal jumps on Saturday morning to stand in eighth place in the overall standings, 377 points behind the competition-leader Anna Hall.
Thiam, who last lost in competition at the 2019 worlds, had been withdrawn by her coach before the javelin and 800m in the evening session. “I’ve struggled with this heptathlon from the start. I tried to fight it and persevere, but it clearly didn’t work,” a tearful Thiam told Het Nieuwsblad after Saturday morning’s session. “I started this morning thinking I would fight until the end and not leave empty-handed because I’ve worked hard this year … “I knew I could do something good here and fight for my place in the standings but that didn’t happen. So I’m disappointed, yes. This championship is a real black cloud.“
Thiam competed sparingly in 2025 and had a disrupted run up to the championships after a row with her national federation. She accused the Belgian athletics body of excluding her from their pre-championships camp in a row over image rights. The federation denied the allegation. Thiam was asked whether the row had impacted her performances in Tokyo.
“It’s hard to quantify that,” she told the newspaper. “Regardless of the reasons why I feel the way I do, the reality remains that I feel the way I do. So that doesn’t make a difference.” (Reuters)
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the penultimate day of action in Tokyo. Breaking news in the heptathlon: Belgium’s title contender Nafi Thiam has pulled out after underperforming in the long jump.
