...Now What? ⏱️

Lap 240: Sponsored by New Balance

Oct 01, 2025

Sponsored by New Balance

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Compiled by David Melly and Paul Snyder

Back On Track: Lap Count Returns To Substack 📝

After two years of experimenting with Beehiiv, The Lap Count and The CITIUS MAG Newsletter are coming back to Substack. We loved Beehiiv as a slick, fast platform that helped us grow. But Substack has made some changes and evolved into a network of active readers and a place for conversation, comments, and recommendations. That’s the main reason for the move—we want The Lap Count to join a hub of conversation, instead of existing as a one-way broadcast.

As a subscriber, as far as reading us goes, nothing has to change on your end. The Lap Count will keep showing up in your inbox, only now with more room for interaction and discovery—especially if you take advantage of the Substack app that allows for following, commenting, and recommending all your favorite reads.

It’s the same mission for us, and the same voice. We’re just back on the platform that feels like home.

Does Winning World Championship Gold Make You The Best? ☝️

Noah Lyles | Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto

In most sports, the entire arc of a season bends toward an ultimate conclusion: determining who’s the indisputable best at their chosen craft. In a few short weeks, a World Series champion will be crowned, rendering the 162 regular-season baseball games that preceded it a big blurry prelude to the games that Really Matter.

For years, we’ve wrestled with the outsize importance that the Olympics and World Championships have over track and field. You’ve heard the arguments over and over: it’s great for every narrative to come to a head in one big, final clash, but it’s frustrating when the championship overshadows or negates the value of regular-season racing. The 2025 reality is, however much we want the regular season to matter, winning global [outdoor] gold is generally considered the final stamp on world #1 status.

Sometimes, there’s no ambiguity to quibble over. Who can argue that Mondo Duplantis or Valarie Allman wasn’t the best in the world at their discipline this year? Along with Duplantis and Allman, who went undefeated all season, there were seven other athletes who claimed the trifecta of World gold, a win at the Diamond League final, and the best mark in their event this year: Noah Lyles (200m), Emmanuel Wanyonyi (800m), Cordell Tinch (110m hurdles), Hamish Kerr (high jump), Femke Bol (400m hurdles), and Leyanis Perez Hernandez (triple jump).

All of those athletes—with the possible exception of Bol, who inarguably benefited from Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s late-season focus on the flat 400m—can fairly credibly claim world #1 status. A few others didn’t quite three-for-three but still have unassailable cases: Tara Davis-Woodhall and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden ran the table in their domains but skipped the DL final; Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers dominated the hammer, but the much-maligned throwing event has been excluded from the Diamond League for years.

Others may not have the list of results to climb the World Athletics rankings, but their Tokyo performance still serves as a shiny round “told-ya-so.” Per WA, McLaughlin-Levrone is the third-ranked 400m runner this year behind Marileidy Paulino and Salwa Eid Naser, and if you’re a hard-core Diamond League and/or Grand Slam truther, you’d be happy to see Sydney placed behind her oft-racing rivals. But that simply doesn’t pass the smell test: the now-second-fastest woman of all time beat Paulino and Naser in stunning fashion at Worlds, and it’s hard to argue against her status as best in the world at her new event.

Ryan Crouser isn’t even ranked by World Athletics because he competed exactly once in 2025, but despite battling an elbow injury all season, the world record holder in the shot put still came home with his fifth straight global gold. Heck, you could even make the case that his “world #1” status is solidified by the sparse nature of his season: the guy was hurt all year, didn’t get his competition reps in, and still embarrassed everyone who’d been firing on all cylinders for months.

But the most interesting events are the ones where, perhaps, the gold medalist wasn’t the consensus best athlete. Does Lilian Odira’s meteoric rise to the top of the 800m outweigh a season where she only raced outside Kenya once? Does Jimmy Gressier’s prodigious kicking ability really mean he’s the best 10,000m runner in the world? Conversely, is Mykolas Alekna’s continued inability to land atop a discus podium outweighed by his multiple world records?

In four track events, the Diamond League winner, world leader, and World champion were three different people this year. Let’s go through them one by one, to try and make sense of these cases.

Women’s 100m hurdles: Masai Russell is the world leader at 12.17 and, for whatever it’s still worth, the reigning Olympic champion. Ackera Nugent won the Diamond League final. Ditaji Kambundji shocked the world with a huge PB to win gold in Tokyo. And Grace Stark is currently ranked #1 by World Athletics, despite finishing third in both the DL final and Worlds. So who’s the best hurdler in the world this year?

At the risk of being accused of American bias for the umpteenth time, we’re going with Russell here. She underperformed in Tokyo, finishing fourth, but she did win the U.S. championships, run under 12.20 twice this year, and win the 60m hurdles at the U.S. Indoor champs (she skipped World Indoors). Russell needs to work on her consistency, but the heights of her highs were better than anyone else’s.

Men’s 3000m steeplechase: Geordie Beamish won a slow-as-molasses World final with a scintillating kick, dethroning four-time defending World/Olympic champ Soufiane El Bakkali in the process. Frederik Ruppert won the Diamond League final but finished a well-beaten twelfth in the Tokyo race. This one likely comes down to a choice between Beamish and El Bakkali, the latter of whom is the world leader at 8:00.70 and the former of whom has a season’s best of 8:13.86.

Neither man has raced that much this year, with Beamish racing two steeples before Worlds and El Bakkali three. The boring answer would be to say that, despite a blemish on his otherwise pristine championship record, El Bakkali is still the man to beat. But there’s a real argument to be made that Beamish taking down El Bakkali in a championship for the first time since 2019 is a serious achievement.

Men’s 1500m: You’re probably tired of hearing us wax lyrical on this event. But “Isaac Nader, world #1” feels weird to say out loud. Does Cole Hocker deserve some transitive credit for winning the 5000m because he didn’t have the chance to do the same in the 1500m? Does Josh Kerr get consideration for his ill-timed injury? Or Phanuel Koech for his fall? Heck, do we give this one to Jakob Ingebrigtsen for his indoor mile world record back in February?

Niels Laros has the most high-profile wins over top competition, including the Diamond League final and the Prefontaine Classic. But he was only fifth at Worlds. None of the four men who beat him—Nader, Jake Wightman, Reynold Cheruiyot, and Timothy Cheruiyot—have a resume that conspicuously outshines Laros’s. So here, we’ll give a little deference to World Athletics’s ranking system: their algorithm says that Nader’s wins at Worlds and the Oslo Dream Mile, plus a trio of high-profile top-three finishes slightly outweighs Laros’s three DL wins and Worlds finish.

Which brings us to the most controversial call of all… the “fastest man alive” conversation.

Men’s 100m: The World champ, world leader, U.S. champ, DL champ, and top American at Worlds were five different men: Oblique Seville, Kishane Thompson, Kenny Bednarek, Christian Coleman, and Noah Lyles. Coleman’s victory in Zurich was largely the product of no one else showing up, so we’ll knock him out of the conversation. Kung Fu Kenny deserves credit for going three for three at Grand Slam and winning USAs, but the second half of his season was less impressive and he lost to both Thompson and Lyles, twice. Lyles, the Olympic champ, could make the case that his world-leading 200m adds to his overall case, but that’s never how we as a culture have determined this mantle.

So it’s down to Seville vs. Thompson (See? Not so America-biased after all!). Head-to-head, Thompson beat Seville twice in three attempts, but Seville won when it counted most, in the World final. Thompson had to settle for silver for the second year in a row, but he’s the world leader at 9.75. In addition to running faster than anyone else, he went six for eight in 100m wins (Seville went three for eight), beat the World champ twice including at their national championships, and beat the Olympic champ head-to-head twice this season. At the risk of stirring up controversy, Kishane Thompson is our fastest man alive this year.

The reality is that, short of setting a world record, people will remember your 2025 season primarily by your finish at the championship at the end. Worlds never quite tells the full story, however, and some of the kookier results from Tokyo underscored the limitations of measuring off medals. World Athletics’s rankings and end-of-season awards try to take more of a holistic view, but ultimately there’s no one answer and every fan has a slightly different opinion. And the ability to reflect, debate, and disagree is what the postseason is all about.

Revisiting TLC’s Early-Season Predictions – How’d We Do? 🧐

Faith Kipyegon | Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto

Back in March, the CITIUS MAG team offered some bold predictions for the 2025 track season. Some were right, others were way off, and others proved weirdly complicated to unpack.

So with the season mostly in the books, let’s take a look at our track (sorry) record:

Noah Lyles will run the 400m at 2025 USA Championships. Anderson Emerole

Well, this couldn’t have been more wrong—but let’s give Anderson a little benefit of the doubt here. Lyles did open up his season with a 400m at the Tom Jones Invitational in April and had previously expressed a desire to run on both the 4x100m and 4x400m at championships, but the 100m Olympic champ did pick up a mid-season injury that impacted his racing schedule. It’s possible that a fully-healthy Lyles would’ve approached USAs differently if it hadn’t been only his third race back.

Jakob Ingebrigsten will finally get his World 1500m outdoor title. Paul Snyder

Again, the one thing we didn’t predict back in March was a bunch of injuries to big stars—if for no other reason than it would be mean to wish ill health on anyone. Ingebrigtsen did contest the 1500m and 5000m at Worlds but didn’t look remotely like himself, as an Achilles injury pretty much wrote off the whole outdoor season and set him too far back to truly contend. The Norwegian megastar deserves a lot of credit regardless for showing up to race, when he had to have known that he wasn’t going to perform up to his usual caliber.

The men’s 1500m at Worlds will be won by a first-time global champion. David Melly

David’s been crowing about this one from pretty much the moment Isaac Nader crossed the line—but was it really a “bold” prediction? For the eighth championship in a row, the men’s 1500m winner was a first-time champion, so in some ways, this was business as usual, even if Nader’s win was a bit of a surprise.

The women’s marathon world record will fall again. Jasmine Fehr

Hm… was this prediction right or wrong? Technically, Jasmine predicted someone would break Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56, and technically, Chepngetich’s record is still on the books, but she certainly fell from grace after being suspended in July. If you’re in the camp that Chepngetich’s suspension should invalidate her Chicago performance, you could argue that, in fact, the world record “fell” this year. And hey—with two more World Marathon Majors coming up in the next five weeks, ya never know…

Faith Kipyegon will not win the 1500m gold medal in Tokyo. Preet Majithia

Serves Preet right for betting against the GOAT, but for the fifth straight championship in a row, Kipyegon was golden.

Ryan Crouser and Ethan Katzberg will be the only 2024 throwing champions to repeat in Tokyo. Paul Hof-Mahoney

Paulie Throws deserves partial credit here, as both Crouser and Katzberg won gold in Tokyo. But he missed Camryn Rogers and Valarie Allman, and frankly we’re shocked Paul didn’t have faith in Val to keep her win streak going.

The influx of trackfluencers picks up pace. Audrey Allen

This one is hard to judge one way or the other, but it’s worth noting that the biggest news out of the Berlin Marathon wasn’t Sabastian Sawe or Rosemary Wanjiru’s victories; it was British pop singer Harry Styles’s 2:59:13 run. And everyone’s least favorite runfluencer Matt Choi is still out there causing chaos during road races. But on the bright side, a podcast host won a World Championship this year.

Well, if we’d gone eight for eight, the predictions themselves would probably have not been very bold. And the simple act of looking back through the archives into March just goes to show what a wild roller-coaster of a summer it’s been—who knows what we have in store for next year?!

Outside-The-Box Pitches For Track And Field’s Next Big Investor 🤑

Josh Awotunde | Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto

When it comes to boosting the profile of our sport, there are basically two schools of thought.

The first, we’ll call the “stewardship model.” It’s the more old-school approach and essentially boils down to increasing the popularity of track one fan at a time, by gradually and sustainably growing the profiles of events. The Diamond League falls under this umbrella. In the States, think of professional-community-hybrid meets like the Portland Track Festival. For plenty of fans, if meets like these are the apex of the non-championship season, then track and field is already in a pretty good place, propped up by those with an undying passion for the sport.

Then there’s the other philosophy. One that involves pitch decks, words like “disruption” and “innovation,” and venture capital. The goal is to transform the century-old sport into a can’t-miss entertainment product that elevates its stars into the same stratosphere as your LeBron Jameses and Simone Bileses. Think: Grand Slam Track and ATHLOS.

Like many, if not most, of our readers, we’re generally in the first camp—we’re complaining about commercials during the 10,000m, unpacking every step of a tactical 1500m, and begging World Athletics to stop messing around with field event formats. But we’re already hardcore fans of the sport, and the Mr. Monopolies and Scrooge McDucks aren’t digging into their wallets to keep us entertained. In a world where pillow fighting and three-way soccer have earned airtime at ESPN, it’s clear the free market wants gimmicks.

Here are five of our zaniest, potentially profitable track-related ideas that would only require several million dollars to get off the ground. So listen up, hedge fund managers and angel investors!

Creative Brand Partnerships: ATHLOS has done a nice job of bringing major brand partners into the fold that aren’t directly connected to the track and field universe, like Toyota or Tiffany. Let’s do something similar with a beloved purveyor of egg-based breakfast dishes: Josh Awotunde should host a stop of Ryan Crouser’s World Shot Put Series inside of a Denny’s. Awotunde is a notorious Denny’s lover and there’s a rich tradition of Denny’s locations being used for non-dining/getting lit purposes. And given that Red Bull already sponsors Mondo Duplantis and Karsten Warholm, the energy drink brand well known for its high profile stunts could very well send Mondo vaulting over a 20-foot inflatable can or have Warholm chug a can then race a raffle-winner in a 400m.

Nostalgia: What’s old is new again, and as the trend cycle continues to contract, we’ve landed on the late 2000s being the primary inspiration for most modern culture. And given that most of today’s big stars were in elementary school 20 years ago, unfortunately the time has come. It’s time for a “Throwback Thursday” meet where big name athletes wear shutter shades and warm up in American Apparel hoodies, all set to a soundtrack of MGMT. Every pro gets to dig into their sponsor’s archives for a discontinued pro kit, whether it’s a FloJo speedsuit or the Frank Shorter Florida tank top. Most importantly, no one is allowed to compete in shoes manufactured in the modern era. So dust off your Matumbos and get ready to party like it’s 2009.

Nostalgia, part 2: Every time Usain Bolt trots out to an event, mainstream news outlets act like Bigfoot has reappeared. Sure, that might be annoying for the stars of today trying to make names for themselves, but it has the side effect of reengaging fans who base their track fandom on Wheaties boxes. And how else is Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce going to spend her time next year? The “let the average Joe race the pros” suggestion is as stale as yesterday’s coffee, but what about getting Ato Boldon out of the commentary booth and into lane 9? What about a 4x400m that starts with Sanya Richards-Ross and ends with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone? Or, hear us out: A high-stakes 400m race where Jacory Patterson faces off with Michael Johnson for a $100,000 prize. Too soon?

New venues, no rules: There are plenty of fans still seeing red over the disqualification of their favorite athletes at Worlds. Whether these were the right calls or not is up for debate, but it’s not controversial to point out that if there were no rules, nobody would have been DQ’d. One way to achieve a more “anything goes” version of track and field is to host a major meet on the jogging track of a cruise ship or a resort at a remote tropical island (that’s not Bermuda or Jamaica). In international waters there are no disqualifications, so there’s no reason for athletes to hold back. That’s maritime law, baby. You could charge fans an exorbitant amount of money because the racing would be more physical and thus, more like MMA, but also because fans are getting room and board—and what kind of track fan doesn’t want to bump into a World champion at the all you can eat buffet after the race?

Paid Doofuses: Think about one of sports’ most celebrated rivalries: basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals (That venture still makes some money, right?). This dynamic works not just because the Globetrotters are skilled and wear cool shorts, but because the Generals are there to play the flubbing-up foil. It’s basketball stripped of any real competition, distilled into a circus-like performance. This would be so easy for track to pull off: assemble a bunch of track and field “all-stars” (C-tier athletes on the path toward retirement who are riding out the final year of their contracts) and have them face off in a series of events against athletes of the exact same archetype, but who allow themselves to be pantsed mid relay exchange or have pies shoved in their faces on the starting line.

Will any of these ideas single-handedly save the sport? Probably not. But if you’ve got money to burn and dead time to fill in the offseason, it’s worth throwing a few eggs at the wall and seeing if any of them don’t crack.

More News From The Track And Field World 📰

– The World Cross Country Tour kicked off in Lidingö, Sweden, and the results were… well… they were weird. For starters, the men’s and women’s races were each 30km long. The men’s race was won in 1:37:15 by William Nyarondia, a Kenyan athlete born in 1987. The women’s champion was Swede Carolina Johnson, who completed the course in 1:49:19. This was a World Athletics category A event!

– In NCAA cross country action, the BYU women and Oklahoma State men took home the Cowboy Jamboree team titles, while Isca Chelangat and Denis Kipngetich, both of Oklahoma State, won the individual women’s and men’s races, respectively. And at the Gans Creek Classic, the Florida women and Iowa State men prevailed in the team battles; Rosemary Longisa and Solomon Kipchoge, both of Washington State, won the individual races.

– The World Mountain and Trail Running Championships took place in the Canfranc-Pirineos region of Spain, and there were a ton of races. But the main takeaways for our readership are probably that Nina Engelhard of Germany won two individual events and Americans Jim Walmsley and Katie Schide won the longest races of the series.

– NAZ Elite has added former Wisconsin standout and 13:09 5000m man Bob Liking to its roster, both bolstering the squad’s depth and doing its part to address the shocking shortage of “Bobs” in professional athletics.

– Olympian Graham Blanks isn’t done racing in Japan just yet—the Harvard alum is representing the Ivy League select team at this year’s Izumo Ekiden.

– Following a last ditch effort to overturn a ban stemming from tampering and whereabouts violations, two-time World Championship medalist Mo Katir’s appeal has been dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport; the Spanish star will remain banned until February 2028.

– First Joe Burrow, now this?! Another young sports star, 100m World champ Oblique Seville, will miss a little time after undergoing toe surgery to get his ingrown toenails removed. Ew.

– She’s earned a little time off: Triple World champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden announced she wouldn’t be competing at ATHLOS NYC after all… but she will be making the trip to the city anyway to spectate and cheer.

– Sean McGorty has announced his departure from the Bowerman Track Club… or did he leave the Swoosh Track Club, Bowerman Division? Either way—best of luck to the two-time World Championship qualifier, wherever he lands next!

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