The unlikeliest men’s distance champions ever, from small q to gold, and more thoughts & oddities from the 2025 World Championships

After taking a week’s vacation at the conclusion of the World Championships (Kyoto is beautiful and Japanese baseball is awesome), I’m back stateside and spent most of last week getting readjusted to Eastern Time and reflecting on the terrific 2025 Worlds.

Below, I’ve complied nine final thoughts/statistical oddities from the meet, from the strange set of champions in the men’s distance races to Collen Kebinatshipi‘s journey from first-round time qualifier to gold medalist to wondering what happened to Grant Holloway this year. Hope you enjoy.

This was the unlikeliest set of men’s distance gold medalists in World Championship history

The men’s distance events at the 2025 World Championships were defined by three things: close finishes, slow times, and unlikely champions.

The combined winning margin in the 800, 1500, steeple, 10k, and marathon was just 0.22 of a second, making Cole Hocker‘s 0.48 victory in the 5,000 look like a blowout by comparison (though Hocker had to come from 12th place at the bell to do it).

Kevin Morris photo

Several of the winning times were also historically slow.

The brutal heat and humidity early in the meet contributed to the slowest winning times in World Championship history in both the 10,000 (28:55.77 — 54 seconds slower than the previous record) and steeple (8:33.88).

With no Jakob Ingebrigtsen to push the pace, the men’s 1500 featured a winning time above 3:30 for the first time since 2017.

That being said, Hocker’s 12:58.30 was actually the second-fastest winning time in a Worlds 5,000 final, but even that was a tactical race as 14 guys were still in the lead pack at the bell.

Wanyonyi winning the 800 was hardly a surprise considering he won the Olympics last year.

And the marathon is always unpredictable at World Championships.

But the four distance events on the track — 1500, 5k, 10k, steeple — featured the most surprising set of gold medalists in World Championships history. Anyone who bet on a Nader-Hocker-Gressier-Beamish parlay before Worlds probably has enough to retire on a Caribbean island right now.

This was the first time since 1991, the last time Worlds were held in Tokyo, that none of the gold medalists had previously medalled in their event at a World Championships or Olympics — though 5k champ Hocker did medal in the 1500 last year.

And it’s not like these guys are new to the scene. Hocker is 24, Nader is 26, and Gressier and Beamish are 28.

The 2025 world champions’ previous results at outdoor global champs

Seriously, these results were weird. One year ago at the Olympics, Gressier was 13th in the 10,000 — and he was the only guy who even made the final in his 2025 gold-medal event.

Nader was 8th in his 1500 semi, Beamish was 7th in his steeple semi, and Hocker didn’t even run the 5,000 in Paris after finishing 7th in the Olympic Trials 5,000.

Yet just one year later, all four are world champions.

Beamish had at least been close to a steeple medal in 2023 (5th) and won World Indoor gold in the 1500 in 2024.

Likewise, Hocker won Olympic gold and World Indoor silver in the 1500 in 2024.

But neither Nader nor Gressier had ever come close to a global medal of any kind outdoors. Heck, neither had even medalled at Euro outdoors.