For our latest List of 7, we’re looking at Japan’s best medal prospects for the 2025 World Athletics Championships, a competition due to start at the National Stadium in Tokyo on Saturday. More than 2,200 athletes will compete at the event, including 80 from the host nation. Japan is aiming to improve on its best-ever medal haul of four, a total it reached in 2003 and 2022. As well as Japan’s top athletes, we’re also profiling seven of the biggest global stars that will be appearing in Tokyo for the season-ending track and field competition.
Japan’s Leading Medal Contenders at the 2025 World Athletics Championships
Image: Wikimedia
Haruka Kitaguchi (Women’s Javelin)
Japan’s best gold medal prospect at the World Championships is arguably Haruka Kitaguchi, who is looking to defend the women’s javelin title she won in Budapest two years ago. However, there are question marks regarding her condition going into the event. The reigning Olympic champion missed most of the season due to an elbow injury. She made her return to competition at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on August 20, finishing 10th. Leading contenders to take her crown include Greece’s Elina Tzengko, South Africa’s Jo-Ané du Plessis and rising Serbian star Adriana Vilagoš.
Image: Chubu Industrial Track and Field Association
Toshikazu Yamanishi (Men’s 20-Kilometer Race Walk)
After taking up race walking in high school, Toshikazu Yamanishi set himself the target of winning a medal at the Tokyo Olympics. He achieved that at the delayed Games in 2021, claiming a bronze in the 20-kilometer race. The Kyoto native performed even better at the 2019 and 2022 World Championships, winning back-to-back golds in Doha and Oregon. However, in Budapest, a year after Oregon, he dropped out of contention before the halfway point, finishing a disappointing 24th. In February this year, Yamanishi broke the 20-kilometer world record with a time of 1:16:10.
Image: Tokyo Forward 2025
Masatora Kawano (Men’s 20- and 35-Kilometer Race Walks)
Another Japanese race walker to break a world record in the past 12 months is Masatora Kawano, who did so in the 35-kilometer race last October. The record has since been broken — first by Canada’s Evan Dunfee and then by Italy’s Massimo Stano. Kawano sees that as a positive thing, as he can approach the race in Tokyo with a “challenger” mindset rather than a “defensive” one. With Stano out with a hamstring injury, Kawano’s top competition will likely come from Dunfee, as well as from Japanese compatriots Satoshi Maruo and Hayato Katsuki. Maruo’s best chance of a medal, though, may come in the 20-kilometer race.
Image: Fujii’s Instagram, @nako5775
Nanako Fujii (Women’s 20-Kilometer Walk Race)
On the same day Yamanishi set the world record in the men’s 20-kilometer race, Nanako Fujii broke Japan’s national record in the women’s event with a time of 1:26:33. That was good enough to book a spot at the 2025 World Athletics Championships. It’s her fourth consecutive time competing at the event. The Fukuoka Prefecture native’s best performance was in 2022, when she finished sixth. Kumiko Okada and Ayane Yanai are the other two Japanese competitors in the event. World record holder and Olympic champion Yang Jiayu from China returns after an injury-hit season.
Image: Tokyo Forward 2025
Rachid Muratake (Men’s 110-Meter Hurdles)
Born in Chiba Prefecture to a Togolese father and a Japanese mother, Rachid Muratake became the first Japanese athlete to reach the final of the men’s 110-meter hurdles at last year’s Paris Olympics. Performing an iconic pose from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure during his entrance, Muratake finished fifth in a time of 13.21. His personal best,12.92, at the Athlete Night Games in Fukui last month, was the second-fastest by any hurdler this year. He’ll face a tough field in Tokyo, with the United States’ Grant Holloway, a three-time world champion, considered the favorite.
Image: Tokyo Forward 2025
Ryuji Miura (Men’s 3,000-Meter Steeplechase)
In May 2021, Ryuji Miura broke Yoshitaka Iwamizu’s 18-year-old 3,000-meter steeplechase national record. A month later, the then-19-year-old broke it again in Osaka, before breaking it for a third time in one of the heats at the Tokyo Olympics. His seventh-place finish in the final was the best ever performance by a Japanese athlete in the event. He also placed sixth at the 2023 World Championships and eighth at the Paris Olympics. He has the third-fastest time in the world this year behind Germany’s Frederik Ruppert and Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali, a two-time Olympic champion.
Image: Olympics.com
Men’s 4 x 100-Meter Relay Team
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Japanese men’s 4 x 100-meter relay team caused a shock by claiming a bronze medal that was later upgraded to silver after the Jamaican team was disqualified. They also picked up a silver at the 2016 Rio Games and successive bronze medals at the 2017 and 2019 World Championships in London and Doha. Led by Abdul Hakim Sani Brown and Yoshihide Kiryu, they could be a dark-horse for another medal in Tokyo. An additional member of the squad is 16-year-old Sotaro Shimizu, who set the under-18 100-meter world record in July.
Other Japanese names with an outside chance of a medal at the 2025 World Athletics Championships include Nozomi Tanaka (women’s 1,500 and 5,000 meters), Sayaka Sato, Yuka Ando and Kana Kobayashi (women’s marathon), Yuto Seko, Ryoichi Akamatsu and Tomohiro Shinno (men’s high jump) and Yuta Sakiyama (men’s javelin). The men’s 4 x 400-meter relay team has also been making a lot of progress in recent years.
The Biggest Stars in Athletics Heading to Tokyo
Noah Lyles (Men’s 100 and 200 Meters)
A six-time gold medalist at the World Championships, US sprinter Noah Lyles is aiming for a sprint double in Tokyo. He has the fastest time in the world this year in the 200 meters, but has struggled with form in the 100 meters.
Julien Alfred (Women’s 100 and 200 Meters)
Saint Lucia’s first-ever Olympic champion, Julien Alfred, like Lyles, has her sights on a 100- and 200-meter double. She has yet to win a medal at the outdoor World Championships. America’s Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is seen as her biggest rival in Tokyo.
Armand Duplantis (Men’s Pole Vault)
The greatest pole vaulter of all time, Armand Duplantis has broken the world record an astonishing 13 times. It currently stands at 6.29 meters. The Swede has won two Olympic gold medals, two outdoor world championship titles and three indoor ones.
Yulimar Rojas (Women’s Triple Jump)
Venezuelan triple jumper and world record holder Yulimar Rojas is a four-time outdoor world champion and three-time indoor world champion. She won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, but was unable to defend her crown last year due to injury.
Faith Kipyegon (Women’s 1,500 and 5,000 Meters)
The queen of middle-distance running, Kenyan athlete Faith Kipyegon is the reigning 1,500- and 5,000-meter world champion. Last year, she became the first athlete to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 1,500-meter women’s race.
Beatrice Chebet (Women’s 5,000 and 10,000 Meters)
At the Paris Olympics, Kipyegon was defeated by her compatriot Beatrice Chebet in the 5,000-meter race. Chebet became the third woman in history to claim an Olympic double at that distance and the 10,000 meters. She currently holds the 5,000-meter world record.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Men’s 1,500 and 5,000 Meters)
The youngest member of the famous Ingebrigtsen family of athletes, Jakob won gold in the 5,000 meters and silver in the 1,500 meters at the last two World Championships. He is also a two-time indoor world champion and two-time Olympic champion.
Though unlikely to medal, another name to look out for in Tokyo is Australia’s 17-year-old sprinter Gout Gout, who has been touted as the “next Usain Bolt.”
