Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and Grant Holloway (© Getty Images)
Women's 100m hurdles
Timetable | world rankings | 2023 world list | world all-time list | how it works
The leading contenders in the women’s 100m hurdles do not shy away from racing each other, and two of the current world’s top three – Nia Ali and Jasmine Camacho-Quinn – have clashed 17 times since the start of the 2022 season. The World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 gives them the chance to go head-to-head again, as USA’s Ali looks to regain the title she won in 2019 and Puerto Rico’s Camacho-Quinn goes for another global gold to add to the Olympic crown she claimed in Tokyo.
Ali is the world leader with the 12.30 PB she achieved to win in Monaco on 21 July, the 34-year-old improving her previous best set when winning her world title in Doha by 0.04. That was one of the occasions where she wasn’t up against Camacho-Quinn, however, and it’s the Puerto Rican who leads their career head-to-head tally, having got the upper hand in each of their races.
With Ali in the form of her life, and Camacho-Quinn just 0.01 behind her on this season’s top list, a brilliant battle could be in store. The competition in Monaco was Ali’s first ever Diamond League win in a career that features 2016 Olympic silver and two world indoor 60m hurdles titles alongside her 2019 world gold. Camacho-Quinn, meanwhile, has multiple Diamond League wins to her name and has triumphed in Doha and Lausanne as part of an unbeaten season of 10 races so far. In addition to her Olympic title, the 26-year-old claimed world bronze in Oregon last year and set her PB of 12.26 in the semifinals of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Nia Ali on her way to winning the 100m hurdles at the World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 (© Getty Images)
Kendra Harrison will be looking to deny them both. The former world record-holder, who clocked 12.20 in London in 2016, is tied with Camacho-Quinn at No.2 on this season’s top list with the 12.31 she ran to finish runner-up to Ali in Monaco. She was also second to Ali at the US Championships and has finished in the top two in each of her 10 races this season. Her aim will be to continue that pattern, but go one better than the silver medals she earned at the 2019 World Championships, behind Ali, and Tokyo Olympics, behind Camacho-Quinn.
Jamaican athletes were third in both of those global finals – Megan Tapper getting bronze in Tokyo and Danielle Williams taking a place on the podium in Doha – and they both compete again, joined by rising talent Ackera Nugent, the 21-year-old NCAA champion, who won world U20 gold in 2021. Joining Ali and Harrison on the US team is Masai Russell, who finished second to Nugent in the NCAA final, the pair clocking respective wind-assisted times of 12.25 and 12.32.
Ditaji Kambundji has also dipped under 12.50 this year, running a Swiss record of 12.47 in Bern at the start of this month. She finished third behind Poland’s Pia Skrzyszowska and Hungary’s Luca Kozak at the European Championships last year and both of those athletes are entered, Skrzyszowska as she continues her comeback after injury and Kozak, who is a home star.
Others looking to make an impact will be France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela and Bahamian Devynne Charlton, who were top two at last year’s World Indoor Championships, plus Dutch record-holder Nadine Visser and Ireland’s Sarah Lavin.
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan, who won the world title last year in Oregon, is also among the entries but her participation is pending a decision from the Athletics Integrity Unit, following her anti-doping suspension for three whereabouts failures.
Men's 110m hurdles
Timetable | world rankings | 2023 world list | world all-time list | how it works
Grant Holloway has the chance to become the second athlete after his US compatriot Greg Foster to claim three consecutive world 110m hurdles titles. Forty years on from Foster’s first win at the inaugural World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Holloway will hope to mark the anniversary year by gaining a 12th gold medal for his nation in the event.
The 25-year-old certainly seems in shape to do so, having lost just once this year – to Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell at the Rabat Diamond League meeting on 28 May. Holloway rebounded with wins in Florence and Paris, where he clocked his season’s best of 12.98, and his most recent performance is a 13.01 win in London on 23 July. Not only will he be looking to add another global title to his two world gold medals, but also to an Olympic silver claimed in Tokyo and world indoor 60m hurdles gold won in Belgrade last year.
It is Broadbell who heads this season’s top list, thanks to the 12.94 PB he set to win the Jamaican title. That was the second time he has dipped under 13 seconds – the first was when winning the Lausanne Diamond League last year in 12.99.
The 23-year-old, who won the Commonwealth Games title in Birmingham last year, now sits joint 14th on the world all-time list, alongside his compatriot Hansle Parchment, who beat Holloway to the Olympic title in Tokyo.
Both athletes return to World Championships action in Budapest. Broadbell made it to the semifinals in Oregon last year, while Parchment made it to the final but was unable to race, having injured himself while warming up.
As well as his Olympic title, Parchment has world silver from 2015 and Olympic bronze from 2012 to his name. They are joined on the Jamaican team by Orlando Bennett, the 2018 world U20 silver medallist.
Rasheed Broadbell in action in Oregon (© Getty Images)
Sitting between Broadbell and Holloway on this season’s top list is Cordell Tinch, who secured his first sub-13.00 run by clocking 12.96 at the Arkansas Grand Prix on 23 June. The 23-year-old – who started the season with a PB of 13.63 from 2019 to his name following a few years away from the sport – has also improved his lifetime bests in the high jump and long jump in 2023, to 2.21m and 8.16m, respectively. He finished second to Daniel Roberts at the US Championships and alongside that trio, the US team also includes Freddie Crittenden.
Shunsuke Izumiya is another athlete in PB form in 2023, having improved the Japanese record to 13.04 in Osaka at the start of June. The 2018 world U20 bronze medallist won at the Lausanne Diamond League and was second to Holloway in London.
Wilhem Belocian and Just Kwaou-Mathey have also dipped under 13.10 this season, respectively clocking PBs of 13.07 and 13.09. They will be joined on the French team by Sasha Zhoya, the 2021 world U20 champion who won the French title in a wind-assisted (2.3m/s) 13.01. Jason Joseph has improved to a Swiss record of 13.10 this season.
Jess Whittington for World Athletics
