The World Athletics Championships WCH Oregon22 is an unmissable global experience taking place in the United States for the very first time. The best track and field athletes in the world are coming together in a celebration of diversity, human potential, and athletic achievement. This extraordinary showcase is taking center stage in the heart and home of the sport of track and field in the U.S: in Oregon, in Eugene, in Hayward Field at the University of Oregon.
Team USA, the world’s #1 team, will lay it all on the line on their home turf, in a setting that is both richly intimate and magnificently state-of-the-art. An incredible theater for the sport, the newly reimagined Hayward Field will be the epicenter of local, national, and global communities July 15–24, 2022.
Make sure you don’t miss a single glorious moment!
What to watch for on Tuesday’s Day 5 of WCH Oregon22
Two of the marquee men’s events of World Athletics Championships Oregon22 will have their finals on Tuesday night.
The final two events of Tuesday are the men’s 1,500m final at 7:30 p.m. and the men’s 400m hurdle final at 7:50 p.m.
The last time Karsten Warholm of Norway and Rai Benjamin of the U.S. raced each other on the track, it was their iconic final of the men’s 400m hurdles at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Warholm, who had set a world record of 46.70 seconds early in the summer, won the gold medal in Tokyo in a staggering 45.94 seconds. Before coming to Hayward Field at the University of Oregon for the first World Athletics Championships on American soil, Warholm hadn’t completed a race this year, pulling up after the first hurdle in a Diamond League meet on June 5 with what was called a hamstring injury.
Warholm has looked good so far at WCH Oregon22, winning his first-round heat in 49.34 seconds Saturday, and his semifinal heat in 48.00 seconds on Sunday.
Benjamin, second in Tokyo in 46.17 and also well under Warholm’s previous record, was slowed by hamstring tendonitis and COVID-19 earlier this year, but ran 47.04 to win at the U.S. Outdoor Championships. Benjamin won his opening heat at WCH Oregon22 in 49.06 seconds and took his semifinal heat in 48.44 seconds.
Warholm is the two-time World Athletics Championships gold medalist, and defeated Benjamin in Doha in 2019 to take the gold medal.
Alison dos Santos of Brazil, third in Tokyo in 46.72, opened the season running 47.24 seconds, won the Prefontaine Classic in 47.23 and then ran a world-leading 46.80 at the June 30 Diamond League meet in Stockholm, Sweden. In the opening round, dos Santos ran 49.41, and then posted the fastest semifinal time at 47.85.
If any of those top three falter, the other medal contenders are Americans Trevor Bassitt and Khalifah Rosser, Estonia’s Rasmus Magi, and France’s Wilfried Happio.
Here’s other key things to watch on Tuesday:
MEN’S 1,500 METERS (Final, 7:30 p.m.)
Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who was the 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist and set the indoor world record in the mile this year, is the favorite, especially after Australia’s Oliver Hoare shockingly didn’t make the final. Ingebrigtsen is also the outdoor mile world leader at 3:46.46, making him the sixth-fastest man ever.
Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot was the 2019 gold medalist at the World Athletics Championship in Doha, and his teammate, Abel Kipsang, has the world’s fastest time at 3 minutes, 31.01 seconds. Great Britain’s Josh Kerr was the 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medalist, and teammate Jake Wightman has the world’s second-fastest time this year.
Australia’s Stewart McSweyn should also be in the medal hunt. Josh Thompson of the Bowerman Track Club is the only American in the final.
WOMEN’S HIGH JUMP (Final, 5:40 p.m.)
This could be a big medal event for Ukraine with indoor World Athletics Championships gold medalist Yaroslava Mahuchikh being a big favorite. She’s ranked No. 1 in the world at 2.03m and has a personal best of 2.06m. Teammate Iryna Gerashchenko has cleared 1.98m this year.
Australia’s Eleanor Patterson has cleared 2.00m this year, a personal best. Teammate Nicola Olyslagers has cleared 1.96m this season and has a personal best of 2.02m. Italy’s Elena Vallortigara has a career best of 2.02m, and Kazakhstan’s Nadezhda Dubovitskaya has a career best of 2.00m.
Vashti Cunningham of the U.S. did not qualify for the final.
MEN’S DISCUS (Final, 6:33 p.m.)
Wins and world-leading marks have gone back and forth this season between Sweden’s Daniel Stahl (season-best 71.47m), Slovenia’s Kristjan Ceh (71.27m), and Lithuania’s Mykloas Alekna (69.81m) and Andrius Gudzius (69.39m).
Stahl was the 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist and is the defending World Athletics Championships gold medalist after winning the silver medal in 2017.
Alekna was second in the NCAA meet for the University of California-Berekley this season as a freshman. His father, Virgilijus, was the 2000 and 2004 Olympic gold medalist for Lithuania, and was the World Athletics Championships gold medalist in 2003 and 2005 after being the silver medalist in 1997 and 2001.
Austria’s Lukas Weibhaidinger was the bronze medalist in Tokyo, and is ranked fifth in the world at 69.11m, Sam Mattis of the U.S. is sixth on the world list this year at 68.69m, Simon Pettersson of Sweden, the silver medalist in Tokyo, is ranked seventh in the world at 68.11m.
WOMEN’S 400-METER HURDLES (Heats, 5:15 p.m.)
Americans Sydney McLaughlin and Daliliah Muhammad have combined to break the world record five times in this event beginning with the 2019 U.S. Championships in Des Moines, Iowa. McLaughlin set the world record for the third time when she ran 51.41 seconds at Hayward Field in the U.S. Championships last month.
Muhammad, as the defending champion, from Doha, had a bye into this event and pulled out of the U.S. Championships with a minor injury. All eyes will be on her in the heats to try and get a gauge on her health and fitness.
Femke Bol of Netherlands was third behind McLaughlin and Muhammad when both broke the world record at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, won by McLaughlin. Bol ran 52.03 seconds in the Olympic final. In two European Diamond League meets 15 days apart last month, Bol ran 52.61 seconds and then 52.27.
Britton Wilson of the U.S. was the NCAA champion for Arkansas and ran 53.02 seconds behind McLaughlin’s world record at the U.S. Championships. Jamaica’s Andrenette Knight, Janieve Russell, Shiann Salmon and Rushell Clayton have run 53.39, 53.63, 53.82, and 53.90, respectively, this season.
WOMEN’S 200 METERS (Semifinals, 6:05 p.m.)
This may be the true marquee women’s sprint event at WCH Oregon22.
Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson has the world lead at 21.55 seconds to become the third-fastest performer in history. She ran that while defeating two-time reigning Olympic gold medalist Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce at the Jamaican Championships.
Fraser-Price won her fifth World Athletics Championship 100m gold medal on Sunday over Jackson, the silver medalist, and Thompson-Herah, who ran 21.53 in winning the 200m in Tokyo. Fraser-Pryce ran a 21.79 personal best last year.
Abby Steiner, who won the NCAA Outdoor Championships and the U.S. Outdoor Championships, both at Hayward Field, is ranked No. 2 in the world at 21.77 seconds.
Tamara Clark and Jenna Prandini ran 21.92 seconds and 22.01 seconds, respectively, at the U.S. Championships. Nigeria’s Favour Ofili, the NCAA runner-up for LSU, has run 21.96 seconds this year.
Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, fourth in Sunday’s 100m, is the defending champion. Switzerland’s Maujinga Kambundji was the Doha bronze medalist.
MEN’S 200 METERS (Semifinals, 6:50 p.m.)
After sweeping the 100m medals on Saturday, it’s hard seeing the U.S. not doing the same here with defending champion Noah Lyles, Erriyon Knighton, who has run 19.49 seconds this year, Fred Kerley, who won the 100m on Sunday, and 2020 Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Kenny Bednarek.
The best bets to prevent the U.S. sweep are 400m indoor World Athletics Championships gold medalist Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago, Liberia’s Joseph Fahnbulleh, the reigning two-time NCAA Outdoor champion for Florida, Great Britian’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, and South Africa’s Luxolo Adams.
By Ashley Conklin
