Conversations with Larry, Tokyo 2025 World Athletics Championships Reviews, Day 2: September 14, 2025, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden takes the 100 meters!

RunBlogRun presents

Conversations with Larry

Tokyo 2025

World Athletics Championships Day

2 Review

September 14, 2025

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden Wins Gold!

The crowds in Tokyo Olympic Stadium were a huge part of the story! Sitting up in section 310, row 10, this writer enjoyed nine superb days and nights of track and field! In the mornings, we saw 18-20,000 fans and most evenings, 55-56,000 fans each night. This was, for Tokyo in particular, their Olympics. The Tokyo 2021 Olympics cost the country over $5 billion in lost ticket sales and hospitality charges and goodwill. Covid-19 stopped that!

Seb Coe, President of World Athletics made it very clear that Athletics was the first sport to return to Japan after the Tokyo Olympics. The opening presser was a case in point, where the LOC head was in absolute tears noting how important that this event was to Japan.

The hosts were fantastic! From walking around each night, and enjoying the world’s greatest Ramen, to the kind taxi drivers, to the helpful volunteers in the stadium, this writer, along with his brother, Brian Eder, co-founder of RunBlogRun shared two wonderful weeks in Japan!

Enjoy our coverage of day 2 and the superb finals on Day 2.

There were many surprises and exciting moments!

Valeria Allman won her first World Champs discus title! the two-time Olympic champion added the discus title to her medal collection!
Tara Davis-Woodhall dominated the World Champs long jump, with Malaika Mihambo, Tokyo Olympic champion, take the silver!
Talk about a surprise! France rejoiced as Jimmy Gressier sprinted away from Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia and Andreas Almgren of Sweden rounded out the medals. Europe took two of the three medals in the 10,000 meters! Pretty awesome!
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden took the Women’s 100 meters, with Tina Clayton (Jamaica) in silver and Olympic champion, Julien Alfred (LCA) took bronze. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden continued her complete domination of the sprints in 2025!
In a spectacular Men’s 100 meters, Jamaica went one, two! Oblique Seville took gold, Kishane Thompson took silver, and Noah Lyles was the happiest person there, having won a medal with such a short build-up!

This is our review of all nine days of the 2025 World Athletics Outdoor Championships, held September 13-21, 2025. This coverage was sponsored by NIKE Running! Please check out the Vomero 18, Vomero PLUS, Vomero Premium and Air Structure 26 at your favorite local NIKE running store or go to www.nikerunning.com!

Special thanks to Mike Deering, who edits, curates and produces the podcasts for Fortius Media Group LLC (RunBlogRun.com and RunningNetwork.com).

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Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America’s first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: “I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself.” Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys.

Theme song: Greg Allman, ” I’m no Angel.”

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