Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco will be chasing a seeking hat-trick of titles in the steeplechase at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Ethiopia\u2019s world record-holder Lamecha Girma will be standing in his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With silver medals from three consecutive World Championships to his name \u2013 and one from the Tokyo Olympics \u2013Girma is still seeking his first global title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El Bakkalihad beaten him to gold at the last-but-one Olympics to end Kenya\u2019s sequence of nine wins in the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since that breakthrough victory in Tokyo, El Bakkali has taken over, winning the 2022 world title in Oregon and successfully defending it a year later in Budapest \u2013 each time with Girma in second place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last summer El Bakkali retained his Olympic title, this time without the close challenge of the Ethiopian who had lowered the 19-year-old world record to 7:52:11 shortly before the Budapest World Championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of the top nine fastest men this year will be in Tokyo, with El Bakkali leading the list after earning another of his triumphal victories on the home track of Rabat, this time in 8:00:70.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Girma is seventh fastest this year with the 8:07:01 he recorded in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of 2025 times, Frederik Ruppert of Germany stands second on the list with the 8:01:49 national record he clocked in following El Bakkali home in Rabat. Ruppert went on to win the Diamond League title in Zurich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, in the women\u2019s race, three of the four fastest women in history will clash again, with World and Olympic champion Winfred Yavi of Bahrain starting as the second-fastest woman of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uganda\u2019s Tokyo Olympic gold and Paris Olympic silver medallist Peruth Chemutai, and Kenya\u2019s world and Olympic bronze medallist Faith Cherotich is the other two athletes with incredible sub-8:49 PBs on their CVs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yavi has competed in only four steeplechase races this season, placing second in the Diamond League events in Doha and Oslo, and winning in Eugene and at the Night of Athletics meeting in Belgium. She then took on the newly introduced mile steeplechase, clocking 4:40.13 at the Brussels Diamond League. She is the second-fastest athlete in history with 8:44.39 \u2013 only world record-holder Beatrice Chepkoech has run faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kenyan trials winner Cherotich sits between Yavi and Chemutai on this season\u2019s top list with 8:48.71. Another candidate for gold, the 21-year-old beat Yavi to the 2024 Diamond Trophy and in her first two races of 2025, in Doha and Oslo. Yavi got revenge in Eugene, running a world-leading 8:45.25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of Cherotich\u2019s five Diamond League appearances, she also notched wins in Paris and Zurich, where she retained the Diamond League title as well as receiving the Jesse Owen Rising Star Award. The Diamond Trophy earned Cherotich a wild card entry for Tokyo, so Kenya can enter four athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kenyan line-up also includes Doris Lemngole, the Lausanne Diamond League winner and two-time NCAA champion, plus Pamela Kosgei, who is a double NCAA champion and younger sister of former marathon world record-holder Brigid Kosgei, and Celestine Biwott, making her global debut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chemutai, seventh in Budapest, aims to become only the second Ugandan woman to win a world title in this event after Dorcus Inzikuru in 2005. Chemutai opened her season with seventh place in Doha and bounced back to win at the FBK Games before placing second in Paris and third behind Cherotich in Eugene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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