Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill
Three-time world heptathlon champion on BBC Two

The athletes will need coping strategies to physically deal with this heat and humidity.

Most of them will have strategic plans coming into the World Athletics Championships but it is also quite hard mentally because you're going through your events, you're dehydrating and you're feeling so tired when you need to be at your strongest.

It's just about being on those hydration strategies and trying to keep yourself as cool as possible throughout the days.

Image source, Getty Images

Great Britain's Cameron Corbishley, who was the 34th and final finisher in the men's 35km race walk in today's morning session, has been speaking to BBC Sport: "It didn't feel too hot out there. The conditions that I've been preparing for were a lot hotter but I think the humidity just makes it so hard on your body. My body just really suffered out there.

"I tried to use the motivation of other people slowing down and other people dropping out to just think to myself that I need to take it one lap at a time. I was just focusing on ticking the laps off and trying to match anyone that I could with the little bit of energy that I did have."

Harry Poole
BBC Sport in Tokyo

Konnichiwa!

Welcome to Japan's National Stadium, the home of what promises to be a brilliant nine days of athletics here in Tokyo.

The stadium which hosted the Tokyo Olympics without supporters is set to be a cauldron of noise this evening as the home supporters look to make up for that lost opportunity to get behind their athletes.

Close to 500,000 tickets have been sold for the World Championships so far, with many of the evening sessions completely sold out.

We had a good warm-up this morning as the hosts celebrated their first medal, and now it's time to take things up a notch.

We're diving straight into the action with a busy evening session on day one of the 2025 World Athletics Championships.

Here's what's coming up over the next few hours:

10:05: Men's 3,000m steeplechase heats

10:30: Women's long jump qualifiers

10:55: Women's 100m heats

11:05: Men's pole vault qualifiers

11:50: Women's 1500m heats

12:35: Men's 100m heats

13:10: Men's shot put final

13:30: Women's 10,000m final

14:20: Mixed 4x400m relay final

Image source, Getty Images

The 2025 World Athletics Championships got under way overnight, and what better way to start than with a medal for hosts Japan?

Hayato Katsuki took bronze in the men's 35km race walk, to the delight of the thousands of fans lining the streets around Japan's National Stadium.

Great Britain's Cameron Corbishley was the 34th and final finisher in the field of 50, as several athletes succumbed to the 30C heat and 90% humidity.

Spain's Maria Perez won gold by over three minutes in the women's 35km race walk, while Great Britain finished second in heat one of the 4x400m mixed relay to qualify for this afternoon's final.

A month on from winning his 11th straight British title, Scott Lincoln qualified for the men's shot put final this afternoon.

Image source, Getty Images

Hello and welcome to the evening session of day one of the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo!

Because Japan is eight hours ahead of the UK, the morning session happened while most of us were tucked up in bed.

Before the action resumes in about 35 minutes, let's recap what happened overnight and look ahead at what is to come.

Despite a 376-day wait to compete after winning Olympic gold, and making her return from injury just four weeks before the championships, Hodgkinson will line up as the gold medal favourite in the women's 800m.

The 23-year-old announced her return in style last month, running the fastest time of the year in Silesia before making it back-to-back wins at the Lausanne Diamond League four days later.

Hodgkinson, a two-time world silver medallist, is joined in the 800m by training partner and Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Hunter Bell, who has chosen to switch focus in pursuit of another global podium, and Jemma Reekie.

Olympic silver medallists Kerr (men's 1500m) and Johnson-Thompson (heptathlon) both compete as defending world champions, while Hudson-Smith (men's 400m) will target gold after making the podium at the past three global championships.

The women's 4x100m team featuring 100m and 200m individual medal hopes Dina Asher-Smith, Daryll Neita and Amy Hunt head GB's relay medal hopes following Olympic silver.

World bronze medallist Zharnel Hughes doubles in the men's 100m and 200m and is joined by world indoor 60m champion Jeremiah Azu in the former.

Amber Anning, fifth on her Olympic debut and the world indoor champion, will have American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone among the competition after the hurdles star chose to switch events.

Molly Caudery (women's pole vault) said she feels "so ready" for a world title bid, while Max Burgin (men's 800m) demonstrated his readiness to challenge for a global medal at recent Diamond League races.

Marathon runner Emile Cairess will seek to build on his fourth-place Olympic finish, and high jumper Morgan Lake displayed her medal potential by clearing 2m for the first time last month.

GB's podium prospects also include British 5,000m record holder George Mills, the experienced Laura Muir (women's 1500m) and rising star Charlie Dobson (men's 400m), as well as their five relay teams.

GB finished seventh in the medal table in 2023, winning two gold medals, three silver and five bronze.

BBC Sport

Image source, Getty Images

The biggest names in athletics are poised to go head-to-head for global honours over nine days of action at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

The end-of-season championships begin on Saturday, with daily coverage across the BBC.

Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson and fellow Paris 2024 medallists Josh Kerr, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Matthew Hudson-Smith and Georgia Hunter Bell are among Great Britain's podium hopes.

The relay teams will also aim to deliver once again after supplying five of GB's 10 athletics medals at last summer's Games, beginning with the mixed 4x400m final on the opening night at Japan National Stadium.

That total in Paris was GB's best return at an Olympics for 40 years, and followed the team's joint-best World Championships haul of 10 medals in 2023.

Olympic 100m champions Noah Lyles and Julien Alfred, Swedish pole vault star Armand Duplantis, Kenya's Faith Kipyegon and Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen are among the global stars targeting gold in the Japanese capital.

Total prize money of $8.5m (£6.2m) is on offer, with gold medal winners receiving $70,000 (£52,000). A $100,000 (£74,000) world record bonus is also available.

Tokyo is preparing to host a premier sporting event for the first time since the 2020 Olympics, which were postponed one year and had to be held behind closed doors because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Extreme heat is expected during the championships, with temperatures likely to exceed 30C.

As Tokyo is eight hours ahead of British Summer Time, for UK viewers the morning sessions will take place overnight, while evening sessions run from morning to early afternoon.

American Lyles will target a third consecutive global 100m gold after winning a spectacular Olympic final by just five-thousandths of a second, as he seeks to retain three world titles.

Compatriot - and this year's fastest man - Kenneth Bednarek, Jamaicans Kishane Thompson and Oblique Seville, and Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo are among his main rivals.

Alfred stormed to the women's 100m title in Paris to deliver St Lucia's first Olympic medal of any colour, before taking 200m silver, and will once again target a sprint double.

The women's 100m and 4x100m relay will feature Jamaica's 10-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce seeking to end her career by adding to her 24 global medals, but Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas has been ruled out by injury.

Having broken the men's pole vault world record for a 13th time in August, Duplantis will be expected to not only capture his fifth consecutive global title, but also target a first clearance above 6.30m and the $100,000 record bonus.

Distance-running great Kipyegon, winner of seven golds and three silvers across the past eight global championships, is the red-hot favourite to claim a fifth consecutive global 1500m gold.

Ingebrigtsen's preparations have been disrupted by injury but, after being thwarted by Britons Kerr and Jake Wightman in the past two world 1500m finals, the three-time global 5,000m champion will be determined to secure the one major title which has evaded him.

Belgian heptathlete Nafi Thiam comes up against fellow two-time world champion Johnson-Thompson in her pursuit of a sixth global title, after clinching her third consecutive Olympic crown last year.

BBC iPlayer

BBC One, BBC Two, iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app from 13-21 September.

There will be a daily highlights show on BBC Red Button, BBC Three, iPlayer and online.

Also there will be commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live.