Marco Arop runs to 800m bronze, his third straight world championship medal 

Marco Arop celebrated his 27th birthday by winning his third straight world championship medal in the men’s 800m, taking bronze on Saturday at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. 

In a very close final, Arop ran a season best time of 1:41.95 to finish behind only Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi (1:41.86) and Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati (1:41.90). All three men were under the previous championship record of 1:42.34 that had stood since 2019.  

Wanyonyi, who won Olympic gold just ahead of Arop last summer at Paris 2024, went to the lead from the start of the final and held on for the wire-to-wire win. Arop was right there with him, running in second for most of the race. But in the last stretch, Sedjati moved up from the middle of the pack to edge out Arop for silver at the line, a reversal of their positions on the Olympic podium. 

“It was incredibly fast from the start. I was fighting for the lead and couldn’t get it, but I knew if I just stayed up front and covered the moves it was going to be a fast race. The last 100 I just wanted to fight as hard as I can,” explained Arop. “It was a great race, tough outcome, but really proud of it.”

Arop has now reached the podium in four straight global championships. He won bronze at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon before claiming the title of world champion in Budapest in 2023 and then earning the Olympic silver medal in 2024.

“Just really happy to come out with some hardware, end up on the podium again,” said Arop. “It was a tough one, coming in here, not the best lead up the past couple months, but I started feeling better and better throughout the round so just really happy to be able to perform a season best today and come out with a medal.”

Also on Saturday, Sarah Mitton was pushed off the podium in the final round of the women’s shot put and finished fourth. The two-time reigning world indoor champion had been sitting in second place since throwing 19.76m on her first attempt. She improved her best mark to 19.81m on her third attempt, which slotted her behind New Zealand’s Maddison-Lee Wesche, who had hit 20.06m with her first throw. 

They held onto the top two spots until the sixth round of throwing when Jessica Schilder of the Netherlands launched her final attempt 20.29m, which would give her the gold medal. American Chase Jackson then hit 20.21m to claim silver ahead of Wesche. 

Canada’s Olympic gold medal-winning quartet are through to the final in the men’s 4x100m relay. Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney, and Andre De Grasse won their heat in a season best time of 37.85 seconds, finishing ahead of the United States. They won’t have to deal with Jamaica in the final, who in a shocking turn of events, failed to finish the heat.   

Canada is also through to the final of the women’s 4x100m relay. Sade McCreath, Jacqueline Madogo, Marie-Éloise Leclair, and Audrey Leduc ran to a Canadian record time of 42.38 seconds for the fifth-fastest time in the heats. 

The news was not so good in the men’s decathlon. Damian Warner, who won Olympic gold in this stadium four years ago, withdrew before the competition began after feeling pain in his Achilles during his warmup. An MRI showed there wasn’t a tear, but did reveal swelling and fluid in the tendon. Pierce LePage, who was the defending world champion but hadn’t completed a decathlon since winning that gold medal in 2023, withdrew after the fourth event due to ongoing back issues.