World Athletics Championships – everything you need to know

The biggest names in athletics are poised to go head-to-head for global honours over nine days of action at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

The end-of-season championships begin on Saturday, with daily coverage across the BBC.

Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson and fellow Paris 2024 medallists Josh Kerr, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Matthew Hudson-Smith and Georgia Hunter Bell are among Great Britain’s podium hopes.

The relay teams will also aim to deliver once again after supplying five of GB’s 10 athletics medals at last summer’s Games, beginning with the mixed 4x400m final on the opening night at Japan National Stadium.

Olympic 100m champions Noah Lyles and Julien Alfred, Swedish pole vault star Armand Duplantis, Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen are among the global stars targeting gold in the Japanese capital.

Total prize money of $8.5m (£6.2m) is on offer, with gold medal winners receiving $70,000 (£52,000). A $100,000 (£74,000) world record bonus is also available.

Tokyo is preparing to host a premier sporting event for the first time since the 2020 Olympics, which were postponed one year and had to be held behind closed doors because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Extreme heat is expected during the championships, with temperatures likely to exceed 30C.

American Lyles will target a third consecutive global 100m gold after winning a spectacular Olympic final by just five-thousandths of a second, as he seeks to retain three world titles.

Alfred stormed to the women’s 100m title in Paris to deliver St Lucia’s first Olympic medal of any colour, before taking 200m silver, and will once again target a sprint double.

The women’s 100m and 4x100m relay will feature Jamaica’s 10-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce seeking to end her career by adding to her 24 global medals, but Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas has been ruled out by injury.

Having broken the men’s pole vault world record for a 13th time in August, Duplantis will be expected to not only capture his fifth consecutive global title, but also target a first clearance above 6.30m and the $100,000 record bonus.

Distance-running great Kipyegon, winner of seven golds and three silvers across the past eight global championships, is the red-hot favourite to claim a fifth consecutive global 1500m gold.

Ingebrigtsen’s preparations have been disrupted by injury but, after being thwarted by Britons Kerr and Jake Wightman in the past two world 1500m finals, the three-time global 5,000m champion will be determined to secure the one major title which has evaded him.

Despite a 376-day wait to compete after winning Olympic gold, and making her return from injury just four weeks before the championships, Hodgkinson will line up as the gold medal favourite in the women’s 800m.

Hodgkinson, a two-time world silver medallist, is joined in the 800m by training partner and Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Hunter Bell, who has chosen to switch focus in pursuit of another global podium, and Jemma Reekie.

Olympic silver medallists Kerr (men’s 1500m) and Johnson-Thompson (heptathlon) both compete as defending world champions, while Hudson-Smith (men’s 400m) will target gold after making the podium at the past three global championships.

The women’s 4x100m team featuring 100m and 200m individual medal hopes Dina Asher-Smith, Daryll Neita and Amy Hunt head GB’s relay medal hopes following Olympic silver.

World bronze medallist Zharnel Hughes doubles in the men’s 100m and 200m and is joined by world indoor 60m champion Jeremiah Azu in the former.

Amber Anning, fifth on her Olympic debut and the world indoor champion, will have American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone among the competition after the hurdles star chose to switch events.

Molly Caudery (women’s pole vault) said she feels “so ready” for a world title bid, while Max Burgin (men’s 800m) demonstrated his readiness to challenge for a global medal at recent Diamond League races.

Marathon runner Emile Cairess will seek to build on his fourth-place Olympic finish, and high jumper Morgan Lake displayed her medal potential by clearing 2m for the first time last month.

GB’s podium prospects also include British 5,000m record holder George Mills, the experienced Laura Muir (women’s 1500m) and rising star Charlie Dobson (men’s 400m), as well as their five relay teams.

You can follow all the action on BBC One or BBC Two, and there is also live coverage on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app from 13-21 September.

There will be a daily highlights show on BBC Red Button, BBC Three, iPlayer and online.