Euphoric, throbbing, alive: Why these world championships are proving a rarity

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Opinion

September 18, 2025 — 3.29pm

These world athletics championships are the Olympics that Tokyo was supposed to have.

They are the quasi-Olympics, the consolation prize for hosting an unwanted guest four years ago. They haven’t got the whole Games back, but they have got the Games’ biggest sport back – and the chance to witness it, and embrace it, like it’s an Olympics.

The cavernous stadium that echoed to the sound of runners’ footfalls in 2021, when there were no crowds at the Olympics staged in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now heaving with the roars of 67,750 people. Over half a million tickets have been sold. The first three nights at the world athletics championships, there was not a spare seat to be found. As the weekend rolls into mid-week, the stands have not been as full, but crowds have still been strong.

In 2021, there was no announcer on the public address system, because there was no public to address. There was (mercifully) no music pumping through the speakers, either.

When Australia’s Cedric Dubler screamed at decathlete and compatriot Ash Moloney to f---ing go for it and run his guts out in the final lap of their final event four years ago at the Olympics, we knew what he had said because we could hear him from the stands, only metres away. In Japan this year, you have to yell to be heard by the person next to you.

The city that held its nose, behind face masks, and reluctantly acquiesced to stage a delayed Olympics in 2021 has this time embraced the championships with a gusto that is rare among host countries. There is a fervour for the world championships that is rare in host cities. In some, you struggle to know it is on. Not in Tokyo.

The stands have been packed in Tokyo for the world athletics championships.

When the Olympics were eventually held here four years ago, delayed a year by COVID-19, the city was half closed. An alcohol ban was in place in all bars and restaurants for the duration of the Games to avoid people congregating to watch together. This time bars are open, spilling out with people, many watching athletics on screens.

In 2021, many advertising boards were pulled down and streets closed off streets. This year the paths to the stadium are painted in purple track lanes. Which is also a bit odd because inside the stadium the track is clay red.

The tourist areas of Shibuya and Shinjuku that neighbour the stadium and were subdued four years ago are throbbing again. That is not a consequence of the world championships, but having places like that fully alive during an event like this only helps tease at what it would have been like had they been free to fully indulge during the Olympics.

The date for this year’s event was pushed back to September from its usual window in July/August as a concession to the steamy Tokyo heat. It was a welcome mercy. It’s been mid-30 degrees each day with humidity in the high 80s. Its two-shirts-a-day weather, where applying Rexona is heroically ambitious. Which is good for running fast, less so for sitting and staying dry in the stands.

The stands flutter with the waving of paper fans and the whirr of little portable battery fans, which would look like a $2 shop gimmick anywhere else but here seem an ingenious personal necessity. Those without them quietly melt.

The Japanese have delivered a fast track in fast conditions. In just the first heat of the men’s 100 metres – the biggest event of the championships – three of the first four across the line ran personal bests. The quickest of them, Gift Leotlela of South Africa, ran 9.87 seconds.