Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi, Yaroslav, Brown, Canada’s Grasse , others gun for world athletics glory
Four months ahead of the biggest athletics event of the year, there is no better dress rehearsal than to compete in the stadium that will host the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25.
The Seiko Golden Grand Prix – a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting held in Tokyo on Sunday (18) – will provide the world’s best athletes that exact opportunity.
And for the host nation’s leading performer in the sport, Japanese javelin thrower Haruka Kitaguchi, there’s no better pre-World Championships test than to line her up alongside the two women who joined her on the podium at the last World Championships in Budapest.
Since earning the world title two years ago, Kitaguchi’s profile has continued to rise, due in no small part to her winning the Olympic title in Paris last year. She opened her 2025 campaign earlier this month at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Keqiao, where she placed fourth with 60.88m. The athlete who finished just ahead of her on that occasion, Olympic silver medallist Jo-Ane van Dyk of South Africa, will also be competing in Tokyo this weekend, as will Colombia’s Flor Ruiz Hurtado and Australia’s Mackenzie Little, the world silver and bronze medallists.
Another world and Olympic champion, Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh, will be in action on the infield. The world record-holder is fresh from jumping a world-leading 2.02m in Doha last week, and will line up against Japanese indoor record-holder Nagisa Takahashi.
Elsewhere in the field events, USA’s JuVaughn Harrison turns his attention to the long jump, where he’ll take on in-form Australian Liam Adcock as well as leading Japanese duo Shunsuke Izumiya and Yuki Hashioka.
Like Kitaguchi and Mahuchikh, Sha’Carri Richardson’s place at this year’s World Championships is already guaranteed thanks to her wild card entry as a defending world champion. The US sprinter will already have one her on returning to Tokyo later this year, but for now her immediate focus will be on winning the 100m on Sunday.
She’ll take on fellow US sprinter Twanisha Terry, who finished just 0.1 behind Richardson in the Olympic final last year.
Canada’s 2021 Olympic champion Andre de Grasse, fresh from a third-place finish in the 4x100m at last week’s World Relays, will contest his specialist discipline on Sunday, the 200m. His toughest opposition could be 19.89 performer Robert Gregory.
In the men’s 100m, 2017 world champion Christian Coleman lines up against teenage talent Christian Miller, who’ll be competing outside of the US for the first time. Pjai Austin, Jerome Blake and Hakim Sani Brown are also in the line-up.
After runner-up finishes in both Xiamen and Keqiao on the Diamond League circuit in recent weeks, Japan’s Rachid Muratake is hoping the home crowd can cheer him on to victory in the men’s 110m hurdles. Domestic rival Shunya Takayama and USA’s Dylan Beard will provide stiff competition, though.
In the women’s sprint hurdles, US duo Tonea Marshall and Alia Armstrong take on Japanese record-holder Mako Fukube, while 2022 world bronze medallist Trevor Bassitt faces Costa Rica’s Gerald Drummond and Japan’s Ken Toyoda in the men’s 400m hurdles. The men’s 400m, meanwhile, features Australia’s Reece Holder, Nigeria’s Emmanuel Bamidele and Japan’s Kentaro Sato, winner at this meeting last year.
Davies and Billings out to repeat
One year one from securing an Australian double in the women’s distance events at this meeting, Rose Davies and Sarah Billings are back in Tokyo looking for a repeat performance.
Davies was a clear winner of the 5000m last year, clocking a national record of 14:41.65, which she recently reduced to 14:40.83 in Xiamen. This weekend she’ll line up for the 3000m where she’ll take on Kenya’s Hellen Lobun, who started her 2025 campaign with a 29:30 run over 10km in Valencia.
Billings, meanwhile, will be looking to win again over 1500m, but she’ll be up against fellow Australian Georgia Griffith. Multiple Japanese record-holder Nozomi Tanaka is entered for both the 1500m and 3000m, but will most likely decide nearer the time which distance to contest.
Elsewhere in the distance events, Japan’s Ryuji Miura leads the men’s steeplechase field, while the men’s 3000m line-up includes Ethiopia’s Ermias Girma, Ireland’s Brian Fay and Kenya’s Emmanuel Korir Kiplagat.
Tebogo and Fraser-Pryce among the many major medallists ready to descend on Doha
Sprint stars Letsile Tebogo and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce are among the 45 reigning world and Olympic medallists who will compete at the Jetour Doha Meeting – the third leg of this year’s Wanda Diamond League series – on Friday (16).
After racing the 100m at the Diamond League meetings in Xiamen and Shanghai/Keqiao, Botswana’s Tebogo will step back up to his favoured distance in Doha. The world athlete of the year won Olympic 200m gold and 4x400m silver in Paris last year and dipped under 20 seconds in nine 200m races in 2024. He will be looking to break that barrier for the first time this year when he makes his Doha Diamond League debut.
“Last year was tough both emotionally and physically but I’m excited to compete and to see how the season develops,” he said. “It’s going to be a very long season, but I’m more experienced and mature and I’m ready to push my body to its limits and make every moment count.”
Challenging him in Doha will be Canada’s Aaron Brown and US athletes Courtney Lindsey and Kyree King, who all competed at the World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou last weekend, plus South Africa’s Olympic relay silver medallist Shaun Maswanganyi.
The Jamaican quartet of Fraser-Pryce, Natasha Morrison, Tia Clayton and Tina Clayton also ran at the World Relays and return to individual action in the 100m in Doha. Multiple Olympic and world gold medallist Fraser-Pryce is among the stars making their Diamond League season debuts at the Qatar Sports Club, in what is set to be her final year of competition. They will line up alongside two-time world indoor 60m champion Mujinga Kambundji.
The 400m will pit two-time world medallist Sada Williams against Natalia Bukowiecka, Lieke Klaver and Salwa Eid Naser, while the 400m hurdles features Carl Bengtstrom, who was third in Shanghai/Keqiao, plus CJ Allen and Malik James-King. The 110m hurdles includes a clash of Olympic medallists, as Daniel Roberts and Rasheed Broadbell renew their rivalry.
In the high jump, New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr and Jamaica’s Raymond Richards will compete again after respectively claiming silver and bronze at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing in March. The entry list also includes home favourite Mutaz Barshim – Kerr’s predecessor as Olympic champion – although Barshim did not compete at his own What Gravity Challenge meeting in Doha last week and he may also miss this Diamond League event as he continues to work towards a return later this season. Contenders also include Japan’s Ryoichi Akamatsu, who like Richards cleared 2.26m at the What Gravity Challenge.
Doha has hosted many thrilling javelin contests in recent years and the 2025 meeting looks set to offer another. Czechia’s Jakub Vadlejch had been the runner-up in Doha the previous two years but in 2024 he beat defending champion Neeraj Chopra by just two centimetres to clinch victory and they both return this year. Vadlejch is a multiple world and Olympic medallist, while India’s Chopra is the world and Tokyo Olympic champion, and in Doha they will take on Olympic bronze medallist Anderson Peters, Keshorn Walcott, Julian Weber and Julius Yego.
Big clashes are also on the cards in the discus and pole vault. In the discus, Australia’s Olympic bronze medallist Matt Denny – who moved to second on the world all-time list with his 74.78m throw in Ramona in April – will compete against Sweden’s two-time world champion and Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Daniel Stahl plus Slovenia’s 2022 world champion Kristjan Ceh, who won in Doha in both 2023 and 2024.
Two Paris Olympic medallists go head-to-head in the pole vault, too, as USA’s Katie Moon and Canada’s Alysha Newman compete again, joined by Great Britain’s 2024 world indoor champion Molly Caudery – the 2024 winner in Doha – and USA’s Sandi Morris.
Olympic champion Thea LaFond and Olympic silver medallist Shanieka Ricketts will clash in a triple jump field that also features world long jump champion Ivana Spanovic, testing herself in the triple jump for the first time since 2022.
The full Paris Olympic podium will meet in the 3000m steeplechase – Bahrain’s gold medallist Winfred Yavi taking on Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai and Kenya’s Faith Cherotich in a contest that also includes World Athletics Rising Star award winner Sembo Almayew, who finished fifth in Paris.
The top two from Shanghai/Keqiao – Olympic 10,000m silver medallist Berihu Aregawi and Kuma Girma – go in the 5000m against Dominic Lobalu, who finished fourth at the Olympics. The 800m stars another Olympic fourth-place finisher in Bryce Hoppel, as he races Tshepiso Masalela, Slimane Moula and Andreas Kramer. Olympic and world indoor finalist Susan Ejore races her Kenyan compatriot Nelly Chepchirchir plus Adelle Tracey and Jemma Reekie in the 1500m.
