Keely Hodgkinson 2.0 and the 17-year-old hyped as the next Usain Bolt - 7 unmissable showdowns at World Athletics Championships 2025 in Tokyo

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Tokyo 2025 appears to have it all: Keely Hodgkinson’s comeback, Armand Duplantis taking aim at yet another pole vault world record, and a teenage prodigy being hyped as the successor to Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt. With that in mind, here are seven unmissable showdowns set to light up the World Athletics Championships, which get underway on Saturday on TNT Sports and discovery+.

Watch thrilling finish as Hodgkinson grabs gold for Team GB in 800m

Video credit: TNT Sports

From Keely Hodgkinson's comeback after a torrid run of injuries to Armand Duplantis' relentless pursuit of pole vault world records, the 2025 World Athletics Championships have all the ingredients for a classic.

Hodgkinson headlines a stacked British team also featuring world champions Josh Kerr and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, while Duplantis, Noah Lyles and the retiring Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce are among the big international stars. Oh, and there's also a 17-year-old sprinter from Australia drawing comparisons with Usain Bolt.

You can watch all the action from the World Athletics Championships - which run from September 13-21 - on TNT Sports and discovery+.

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But suppose you are short on time... which events are truly unmissable?

'Keely 2.0' hunts world title

Keely Hodgkinson has come into remarkable form right before the World Championships in Tokyo.

Image credit: Getty Images

Event: Women's 800 metres
When: Thu 18 Sep, 11:58 BST (heats) | Fri 19 Sep, 12:43 BST (semi-finals) | Sun 21 Sep, 11:35 BST (final)

She's back. But she almost wasn't.

Since Olympic glory, Hodgkinson has endured three hamstring tears in just nine months, each threatening to derail her rise. Yet somehow she has re-emerged as what coach Jenny Meadows dubs "Keely 2.0".

Despite only running the 800m twice this season, Hodgkinson sits more than a second clear at the top of the world rankings. She's the clear favourite, but there’s extra intrigue with training partner Georgia Hunter-Bell ranked third. Could Tokyo deliver the unthinkable: two British medals in the same event?

Duplantis vs the pole vault world record

Event: Men's pole vault
When: Sat 13 Sep, 11:05 (qualification) | Mon 15 Sep, 11:49 (final)

Watch Duplantis world record from multiple angles and with multi-language commentary

Video credit: TNT Sports

The script is usually simple: everyone else bows out before six metres. Armand Duplantis clears it with ease. Then he cranks the bar higher, locks in, and takes aim at his own world record.

The Swede arrives in Tokyo with 13 world records already on his CV. He’s won the last two Olympics and Worlds with room to spare, often rewriting history along the way. He flew over 6.25m when winning in Paris last summer - and has since increased that mark four more times.

Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis has cleared 6.08m this season and might cause an upset if Duplantis falters. But given he hasn’t lost in two years (and even then only due to a hamstring twinge), expect the real show to begin when Duplantis raises the bar to 6.30m - likely around 14:30 BST on finals day.

Fraser-Pryce's farewell in stacked 100m showdown

Event: Women's 100 metres
When: Sat 13 Sep, 10:55 (heats) | Sun 14 Sep, 12:20 (semi-finals) | Sun 14 Sep, 14:13 (final)

Watch women's 100m final as Alfred storms to glorious gold medal

Video credit: TNT Sports

The women's 100m is absolutely stacked.

You've got Olympic champ Julien Alfred, defending champ Sha’Carri Richardson, world leader Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, and the second-fastest 200m runner in history, Shericka Jackson. Oh, and one more name: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, running her final championships before retirement.

Fraser-Pryce's planned swansong in Paris ended in chaos when she was briefly denied entry to the stadium before her 100m semi-final and then got injured in the warm-up. At 38, gold feels a stretch - but could she still finish her legendary career with a medal?

It's rare for the men's 100m final to be reduced to a footnote, but it should still be a quality race with defending champion Noah Lyles facing stiff threats from the likes of Kishane Thompson and Kenny Bednarek. You would be wise not to miss that one either on Sunday, 14 September at 14:20 BST.

17-year-old Gout Gout takes on the world

Event: Men's 200 metres
When: Wed 17 Sep, 12:15 (heats) | Thu 18 Sep, 13:02 (semi-finals) | Fri 19 Sep, 14:06 (final)

Gout Gout running in the U23 200 metres during Herculis EBS, part of the 2025 Diamond League at Stade Louis II

Image credit: Getty Images

At just 17, Australian Gout Gout is being touted as sprinting’s next big thing. He hasn’t broken the 20-second barrier legally yet - his best is 20.02s - but a wind-assisted 19.84s suggests it’s only a matter of time.

Noah Lyles still rules the 200m (19.63s this year), so a podium might be out of reach for now. But think back: Usain Bolt's first senior Olympics in 2004 ended in the 200m heats, aged 17. Four years later, he was a global phenomenon. Gout might be on the same road.

And who knows, maybe one day he will be the man capable of surpassing Bolt's 100m (9.58s) and 200m (19.19s) world records.

Kerr vs Ingebrigtsen vs... who knows?!

Event: Men's 1500 metres
When: Wed 17 Sep, 12:15 (heats) | Thu 18 Sep, 13:02 (semi-finals) | Fri 19 Sep, 14:06 (final)

Watch thrilling 1500m final as Hocker defeats GB's Kerr and Ingebrigtsen

Video credit: TNT Sports

The most hotly-anticipated showdown ahead of Paris 2024 was Josh Kerr v Jakob Ingebrigtsen over 1500m. After all the public barbs, it looked like Kerr would claim the bragging rights... until little-known American Cole Hocker found space on the inside and snatched the gold medal.

This year, the 1500m is even more open. Kerr isn't even Britain's fastest athlete this year (George Mills, son of ex-England footballer Danny Mills, takes that crown). Ingebrigtsen has had a difficult year off the track and sits only 10th in the 2025 rankings. Hocker barely makes the top 20.

Plenty are excited about Dutch wonderkid Niels Laros, but even he is only fifth in the world after one spicy, and very quick, Diamond League race in Paris rewrote the rankings. At least 10 athletes have a genuine medal chance. Chaos awaits.

McLaughlin-Levrone's spicy gamble

Event: Women's 400 metres
When: Sun 14 Sep, 11:25 (heats) | Tue 16 Sep, 13:07 (semi-finals) | Thu 18 Sep, 14:24 (final)

Watch dazzling run as McLaughlin-Levrone smashes her own world record in 400m hurdles

Video credit: TNT Sports

Faced with a choice between a near-certain gold in the 400m hurdles and the prospect of missing the podium entirely over the 400m flat, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone chose to gamble. Big time.

Her best of 48.74s might not even put her on the podium, given the strength of Olympic and world champion Marileidy Paulino and Salwa Eid Naser. But McLaughlin-Levrone has made a habit of doing the impossible.

To win, she will likely need to obliterate her personal best - and potentially get close to the long-standing world record of 47.60s from 1985. But with McLaughlin-Levrone, never rule it out.

Thiam, KJT and Hall battle for heptathlon supremacy

Event: Women's heptathlon
When: Fri 19 Sep and Sat 20 Sep - Final event on Sat 20 Sep, 13:01 (800m)

When fit, Nafi Thiam is untouchable on the big stage. The Belgian has three Olympic heptathlon titles and hasn't lost a major championship since 2019, unless injury intervened.

That's partly how Katarina Johnson-Thompson grabbed her second world title in 2023. And the Brit will be hoping to spoil the party again in Tokyo.

Then there's Anna Hall. The American has already hit 7,032 points this year, moving joint-second on the all-time list. Do that again, and she wins - simple. Trouble is, she is yet to deliver her best at a global championship. Is Tokyo the moment it finally clicks?

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