World Athletics Championships 2025: Seville joins Bolt as Jamaican sprint champ, Jefferson-Wooden wins gold for US
Jamaica’s Oblique Seville and Kishane Thompson sent Usain Bolt into celebration mode by combining for a 1-2 finish in the men’s 100-meter sprint, while defending champion Noah Lyles took bronze at World Athletics Championships here on Sunday.
Moments earlier, America’s Melissa Jefferson-Wooden had romped to a win in a women’s sprint that featured a newcomer silver medalist in Jamaica’s Tina Clayton, a fond farewell for the island country’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who finished sixth, and a fifth-place finish from Sha’Carri Richardson, who never found her stride this year.
Seville won the men’s race in a career-best 9.77 seconds, fulfilling the promise he’s shown since he made his Olympic debut in this stadium four years ago, but didn’t get out of the semifinals.
Seville was first out of the starting block, then fell behind, but kept his cool and steadily reeled in Thompson, two lanes to his left, to win the title.
ALSO READ | Seville delighted to win 100m title in front of Bolt
This also marked the first 1-2 finish for Jamaica in the 100 at a major championship since Bolt and Yohan Blake did it at the London Olympics in 2012.
The 24-year-old Jefferson-Wooden turned her race into a laugher right away.
She got about a step ahead of Olympic champion Julien Alfred in the lane next to her, then kept expanding her lead and ran hard through the line when she could have coasted.
She finished in 10.61, breaking Richardson’s two-year-old world-championship mark by .04.
Her margin of .15 seconds over Clayton was a blowout — the same gap Alfred, the Olympic champion who finished third this time, beat Richardson by in Paris last year.
While Jefferson-Wooden jumped and shouted into the stands before draping the American flag around her shoulders, Richardson slowly paced the inside of the track with her hands on hips.
Meanwhile, the second-place finish for Clayton put Jamaica on the podium on the night its best female sprinter, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, bid adieu in the 100 with a sixth-place finish.
The “Mommy Rocket” has 16 medals at worlds with a chance for one more if she runs in next weekend’s relays.
Another American success story came in the long-jump pit, where Tara Davis-Woodhall took care of yet another piece of unfinished business, adding the long jump world championship to the Olympic title she won last year.
The victory in Tokyo comes two years after a second-place finish at worlds left her disappointed and sparked her to rededicate herself to the sport.
And it comes four years after a sixth-place finish here in Tokyo gave her a taste of just how good she could be.
Also in the field, America’s Valarie Allman captured gold in the discus throw to round out her set of gold-silver-bronze from worlds. She also has two Olympic titles.
With three-time champion Joshua Cheptegei now running marathons, the men’s 10,000 meters seemed like a wide-open race. Still, this was a surprise.
Jimmy Gressier of France, known mostly as a road racer, outsprinted Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelca to the finish line to bring a distance gold medal home to France.
ALSO READ | Fraser-Pryce caps phenomenal career with final 100m sprint
The win comes a year after the French managed only a single silver medal at the Olympic track meet on home turf.
Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir needed a late sprint in the women’s marathon to hold off Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia to win gold.
Jepchirchir also won the marathon at the Tokyo Games in 2021, when the race was moved to Sapporo because of the heat.
Published on Sep 14, 2025