Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco seeking hat-trick of titles
Ethiopia’s world record-holder Lamecha Girma wants first global gold after four silvers
Germany’s Frederik Ruppert, Kenya’s 17-year-old Edmund Serum and Japan’s Ryuji Miura among medal contenders
With silver medals from three consecutive World Championships to his name – and one from the Tokyo Olympics – Ethiopia’s world record-holder Lamecha Girma is still seeking his first global title.
Will he find it on his return to the Tokyo Olympic track, at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25?
That will depend not just upon him, but upon the Moroccan who beat him to gold at the last-but-one Olympics to end Kenya’s sequence of nine wins in the event: Soufiane El Bakkali.
Since that breakthrough victory in Tokyo, El Bakkali has taken over, winning the 2022 world title in Oregon and successfully defending it a year later in Budapest – each time with Girma in second place.
Last summer El Bakkali retained his Olympic title, this time without the close challenge of the Ethiopian who had lowered the 19-year-old world record to 7:52:11 shortly before the Budapest World Championships.
Approaching the third-from-last hurdle in the final 200m of the race, Girma burst clear of his Moroccan rival in pursuit of the leader, Kenneth Rooks of the United States, but caught his trailing foot on the barrier and suffered a horrendous fall which left him inert on the track and in need of hospitalisation.
El Bakkali overtook Rooks to become the first man to win consecutive Olympic titles in this event, with the US athlete hanging on for silver ahead of Kenya’s Abraham Kibiwot, the 2023 world bronze medallist. Now El Bakkali is seeking a hat-trick at the World Athletics Championships.
Statistically the portents favour the status quo. All of the top nine fastest men this year will be in Tokyo, with El Bakkali leading the list after earning another of his triumphal victories on the home track of Rabat, this time in 8:00:70.
Girma is seventh fastest this year with the 8:07:01 he recorded in Paris.
In terms of 2025 times, Frederik Ruppert of Germany stands second on the list with the 8:01:49 national record he clocked in following El Bakkali home in Rabat. Ruppert went on to win the Diamond League title in Zurich.
Home hopes will rest on Ryuji Miura, third on the entry list with a Japanese record of 8:03:43 set in chasing El Bakkali home at the Monaco Diamond League meeting.
The third-place finisher on that night, Kenya’s 17-year-old Edmund Serem, laid down a marker for his own precocious medal ambitions as he set a personal best of 8:04:00. He later finished runner-up to Ruppert in the Diamond League Final.
That race in Monaco was the outstanding one so far this season in terms of the quality of times, with the respective fourth- and fifth-place finishers, Morocco’s Salaheddine Ben Yazide and Girma’s compatriot Getnet Wale, taking sixth and ninth places on the season top list with 8:06:44 and 8:07:57.
Ethiopia’s fastest man this season is Samuel Firewu, who clocked 8:05:61 in Xiamen on 26 April.
There remain strong challengers beyond those top nine times, however – most notably Rooks and Kibiwott.
Geordie Beamish of New Zealand is also one to watch. He finished fifth in the Budapest World Championships and won the 1500m title at last year’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow and then set a national 3000m steeplechase record of 8:09:64 in Paris.
Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics
AloJapan.com