Speed demons Kishane and Lyles to go head-to-head

Jamaican Kishane Thompson has run the fastest time for the 100m for a decade with a season’s best 9.75 will go head-to-head with his Paris Olympics nemesis, Noah Lyles at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo starting next week.

The pair’s teammates Oblique Seville and Kenny Bednarek also look likely to be in the medal mix

Kishane Thompson is not an athlete lacking in confidence, the form male sprinter of 2025 even suggesting Usain Bolt’s world record could tumble in Tokyo in the coming days.

Such a prediction might not be so outlandish. When winning at the Jamaican Championships, he clocked 9.75, the fastest by anyone on the planet in 10 years to place him sixth on the world all-time list. Dissecting that run in the aftermath, there is enough to suggest he could go quicker yet at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25.

He goes into the championships with the knowledge that he has beaten Noah Lyles, who pipped him to Olympic gold last summer by the barest of margins, already this season. In a rematch in Silesia recently, Thompson came out on top. In Lyles’ defence, his racing schedule this season has been fairly limited and he described his second place to his rival as “a great stepping stone”.

The question is whether Thompson can deliver on the biggest stage. He clearly thinks so, despite a recent setback with a slight shin injury.

Lyles, arguably sprinting’s greatest showman currently and the defending world champion is again going for the sprint double he achieved in Budapest but couldn’t pull off in Paris last summer.

Thompson’s teammate Oblique Seville, meanwhile, beat Lyles in his first 100m at the Diamond League in London a few weeks back in a time of 9.86 and then produced a similarly convincing win in Lausanne in 9.87 with Lyles once again finishing second (10.02). Seville heads to Tokyo with a season’s best of 9.83.

South Africa’s Akani Simbine is desperate to make it on to the podium. He has finished in the top five, yet out of the medals, in the past seven global championship 100m finals he’s contested. A model of consistency, he has now run sub-10 for 11 years in a row, one better than Bolt.

Bednarek, who has habitually shone at the longer sprint distance, is the second fastest man this season with a time of 9.79.

Two other US runners are likely to challenge too: Courtney Lindsay and T’Mars McCallum with best times of 9.82 and 9.83 respectively this season.

There have been 27 men under the 10-second mark this season so there will be no shortage of athletes potentially in the mix, including Britain’s Zharnel Hughes, a bronze medallist at the last World Championships, Ackeem Blake of Jamaica, and Ghanian Abdul-Rasheed Saminu.

South American hopes appear to rest on the shoulders of Brazil’s Erik Cardoso, a 9.93 runner this year already, as well as Colombia’s Ronal Long (9.96). Also look out for Puerto Rico’s Eloy Benitez, who looked set to do something special at the World Indoor Championships earlier this year before injury struck in the final.

In the women’s 100m race, US champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden arrives undefeated this year. She will the likes of Olympic champion Julien Alfred, chasing first world title and five-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce for company.

Olympic champion Julien was in impeccable form in the early part of this international season, it seemed that few could stand in her way. She did not lose a race in the first six months of the year, including back-to-back 100m victories in the Wanda Diamond League in Oslo and Stockholm. But then it became apparent that this year might offer more than an Alfred victory parade.

Olympic bronze medallist Jefferson-Wooden also made a bright start to the season and when the Paris medallists met for the first time over 100m since the Olympics, it was the US sprinter who triumphed, winning narrowly in 10.75, to Alfred’s 10.77, in Eugene and running into a -1.5m/s headwind.

The two women have not raced each other since, but they are on a collision course for Tokyo, with the title on their minds and speed in their legs.

A podium finish in Paris gave Jefferson-Wooden a taste of global success, and she has devoured it since, finding career-best form and clocking a world-leading 10.65 to win the US trials, which lifted her to No.5 on the world all-time list, and confirmed that she would be the top US challenger this year.

She then chalked up victories in Silesia (10.66) and Brussels (10.75) in August to round out her Tokyo preparation, in which she has been undefeated over 100m.

Julien had a mid-season stutter after winning the 100m in Monaco and the 200m in London in July, withdrawing from competition for five weeks, but she returned for the Diamond League Final in Zurich without missing a beat, winning the 100m commandingly in 10.76 (just outside her personal best of 10.72).

As the two women head to Japan, they share the top nine times in the world this year, but Jefferson-Wooden holds the edge with the top three times, and a victory over her main rival for gold.

US teammate Sha’Carri Richardson will defend the world title in Tokyo, but has yet to show the form that won her the title in Budapest in 2023. She has not broken 11 seconds this year, and withdrew before the final at the US Championships, but will compete in Tokyo courtesy of the wildcard afforded to the defending champion.

New national champion Tina Clayton will lead Jamaica’s charge and is the only other woman with a top-10 time this year (10.81). Unfortunately, her equally- speedy twin Tia Clayton (10.82 this year) will not compete in the individual 100m after an untimely injury during the Jamaican Trials. She recovered to finish second (10.84) to Alfred in Zurich but needed to win that race to claim a wildcard entry to the 100m in Tokyo.

However, five-time world 100m champion Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, 38, will have the chance to bid farewell to global athletics as she wished, by competing in the 100m at her ninth World Championships.

Kayla White, runner-up at the highly competitive US Championships, and Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith, winner at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Budapest, are other athletes to look out for.