What to watch at the track and field world championships
De Grasse, Lyles and a stacked women's 100m are among the key attractions
This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.
At last year's World Athletics Championships in Oregon, Canadians won four medals. Andre De Grasse anchored the men's 4x100-metre relay team to a stunning gold, decathlete Pierce LePage and hammer thrower Camryn Rogers took silvers and 800m runner Marco Arop grabbed bronze.
Those athletes will all contend for the podium again as this year's world championships get going Saturday in Budapest, Hungary. With the 2024 Olympics now less than a year away, this meet will show us who we might see on the medal stand next summer in Paris.
Here are some key Canadian and international storylines to follow:
Does De Grasse still have it?
Heading into last year's worlds, the Canadian sprinting star had entered seven individual events at a major championship (worlds or Olympics) and won a medal in all seven of them. But the streak came to an abrupt end when De Grasse, who'd struggled with his health all season, failed to advance to the men's 100m final after clocking one of the slowest times in the semis. The reigning Olympic 200m champion then withdrew from his best event to save himself for the 4x100m relay — which paid off when De Grasse ran a blistering anchor leg to give Canada a surprising gold.
Unfortunately, De Grasse's solo struggles have continued this year. He missed his last chance to qualify for the 100m event at worlds when he placed a shocking ninth in the semifinals at last month's Canadian championships. Though he bounced back to win the 200m to achieve the qualifying standard for worlds, De Grasse's time of 20.01 seconds makes him just the 20th-fastest man in the world this year. He trails fellow Canadian Aaron Brown (20 flat), who will also compete in the 200 at worlds.
De Grasse has earned a reputation for saving his best performances for the brightest stages. And it's encouraging that he seems to be peaking at the right time in the 200 again. But, at 28, he's now an elder statesman in a brutally competitive event loaded with younger talent (more on that later).
De Grasse will also reassemble with his pals Brown, Brendon Rodney and Jerome Blake later in the meet to defend their 4x100 title. So that gives Canada's biggest track star two chances to recapture the big-event magic that's made him famous. But, as CBC Sports contributor Morgan Campbell writes, it's also fair to wonder whether he's still capable of doing it.
Will Damian Warner finally get his hands on the world title?
Warner is one of the best decathletes of all time. Before winning Olympic gold in 2021 in Tokyo, the Canadian took bronze at the 2016 Games in Rio and collected three world-championship medals. He's also captured gold at the Commonwealth Games, the Pan Am Games (twice) and the world indoor championships while winning the prestigious Hypo Meeting decathlon title a record seven times.
But one prize has eluded Warner: the world championship. He looked poised to win it last year in Oregon, racing out to the lead through the first four legs. But disaster struck in the final event of Day 1, the 400m, when he suffered a hamstring that knocked him out of the competition.
Warner's misfortune opened the door for his younger Canadian teammate Pierce LePage, who took silver for his first major-championship medal as France's Kevin Mayer captured his second world title. LePage, now 27, went on to upset Warner at the Hypo Meeting in May, snapping the 33-year-old's streak of six consecutive victories at the Austrian event.
The decathlon event in Budapest is being billed as a showdown between Warner and Mayer, the world-record holder, with NCAA champion Leo Neugebauer of Germany touted as a potential spoiler. But don't be shocked if LePage has another surprise up his sleeve.
Can Noah Lyles back up his talk?
Anyone who dresses like this clearly doesn't mind a little extra attention. But the two-time defending men's 200m world champ put a target on his back by boasting on Instagram that he's gunning for Usain Bolt's world record of 19.19 seconds, set at the 2009 worlds in Berlin. In fact, Lyles declared that his goal is to obliterate the mark by running a 19.10.
Bold, to say the least. But maybe not as crazy as it sounds. Lyles ran a personal-best 19.31 at last year's worlds to break Michael Johnson's quarter-century-old American record and become the third-fastest 200m runner of all time, behind Bolt and his Jamaican teammate Yohan Blake.
Lyles' top time so far this year is 19.47, which he needed to clip rising star Letsile Tebogo of Botswana (19.50) for the win at a Diamond League meet in London last month. Other challengers at worlds will include Kenny Bednarek and teenager Erriyon Knighton, the fellow Americans who took silver and bronze, respectively, last year. Canada's Andre De Grasse hasn't looked like a medal contender this year, but the Olympic champion is a proven big-race performer.
If Lyles can beat this very deep field, he'll be just the third runner to three-peat as world 200m champ — after American Allyson Felix and Bolt, who won four straight. But he'll have to survive a self-imposed gauntlet of races as, prior to the 200, he'll compete in the 100m for the first time at a major championship. Lyles also plans to run in the 4x100 relay after the 200.
Yes, it's a lot. But, Morgan Campbell argues, Lyles' audacious goal of breaking Bolt's 200m world record isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Is there anything Sifan Hassan can't do?
At the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, the incredibly versatile Dutch distance runner won gold in the women's 5,000m and 10,000m events and took bronze in the 1,500. She'll try that gruelling track triple again in Budapest before racing the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 8 — just six weeks after the worlds end.
Hassan pulled off another astonishing feat back in April when she tried a marathon for the first time. All she did was win it, beating a world-class field in London despite having to stop several times to stretch her tight left leg and nearly forgetting about a crucial water station late in the race. That stunning display of raw talent raised the tantalizing (though still unlikely) possibility that Hassan could attempt a mind-boggling 5,000m-10,000m-marathon triple at next year's Olympics in Paris.
Who will win the stacked women's 100m?
Monday's final is shaping up as a three-way showdown between Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson and American Sha'Carri Richardson.
The timeless Fraser-Pryce, 36, is gunning for her third consecutive 100m world title and sixth (!) of her marvelous career, which also includes a pair of 100m Olympic gold medals and a 200m world title. She delayed her season debut until July because of a knee injury but still put down the world's fourth-fastest time of the year (10.82).
Jackson, 29, is eyeing the sprint double in Budapest after winning the 200 and taking silver in the 100 last year. She owns the fastest time of 2023: a 10.65 at last month's Jamaican championships.
Richardson, 23, has never reached the podium at a major championship. But the striking American, who was suspended for the Tokyo Olympics for testing positive for cannabis and then failed to qualify for last year's world championships, has beaten Jackson twice this year and owns the second-fastest time (10.71).
Potential spoilers in this extremely deep event include Marie Josée Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast, the third-fastest woman this year (10.75). Jamaica's Elaine Thompson-Herah, who's been banged up since winning back-to-back Olympic sprint doubles in 2016 and '21, failed to qualify for the individual 100m but is expected to compete in the 4x100. Read more about the women's 100m here.
In the men's 100m, which opens Saturday and concludes Sunday, Fred Kerley is favoured to become the first man since Bolt to repeat as world champ. The hulking 28-year-old American, who took silver at the Olympics in 2021, won 11 consecutive 100m events before South Africa's Akani Simbine beat him in a photo finish at a Diamond League meet in Poland last month.
More on the world championships
Learn more about the top Canadians by reading this story and watching this episode of CBC Sports' Athletics North show. See the full Canadian entry list here.
Preview the "spicy" women's 100m and Lyles' bid to make men's 200m history in this episode of Athletics North.
Read about Canadian Marco Arop's quest to become the world's fastest 800m runner in this story by CBC Sports' Devin Heroux.
How to watch
All sessions (morning and afternoon) will be streamed live on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem starting Saturday at 2:40 a.m. ET. Plus, there's bonus weekend and late-night coverage on the CBC TV network. For details, see the full streaming and broadcast schedules here.
