1) Noah Lyles & Faith Kipyegon were the MVPs of Worlds
Before this year, no man had won two individual gold medals at the same World Championships since Usain Bolt and Mo Farah in Beijing in 2015. Lyles brought that drought to an end, and added a third gold in the 4x100 relay for good measure. He owns the sprints in a way that no man has since Bolt.
Faith Kipyegon matched Lyles with two individual golds of her own, becoming the first woman to complete the 1500/5000 double at Worlds or the Olympics -- and Kipyegon did it while facing tougher competition than Lyles. 2023 has not been a particularly strong year in the men's 100. Right now, Lyles and Zharnel Hughes are tied for the world lead at 9.83 seconds which, if it holds up, would be the slowest world lead in a full season since 2004 (Michael Norman's 9.86 was the world leader in 2020 but most major meets were cancelled due to COVID). In the women's 1500, meanwhile, five women ran 3:56 in a semifinal.
And the women's 5,000 is the strongest it has ever been. Only nine women in history have broken 14:15, yet six women have done it in 2023. To win the 5,000 at Worlds, Kipyegon had to beat the reigning world champion (Gudaf Tsesgay), reigning Olympic champion (Sifan Hassan), reigning World XC champion (Beatrice Chebet), a two-time Worlds medalist (Margaret Kipkemboi), another Worlds medalist (Ejgayehu Taye), and the reigning World U20 champion (Medina Eisa). She beat them by closing out her title with a ridiculous 56.59 final lap -- even faster than she ran for her last lap in the 1500 final (56.63).
There's a good argument to be had about whether Kipyegon (utter domination of the 1500 and now a world champion/world record holder at 5,000) or Hassan (the most versatile distance runner ever and author of some of the craziest feats in running history) is the greatest runner of their generation, and perhaps all time. That's an argument for a different day, but it's a blessing for the sport to have both of them in it at the same time.