The 2025 World Championships are now in the books. I personally enjoyed them, though not as much as the 2023 World Championships or the 2024 Olympics. Due to the heat in Tokyo, several of the distance races were left absurdly slow. Notably the men’s 3000m steeplechase and 10000m. This allowed the “kickers” to come through and steal the show. We’ve never such an abundance of athletes coming from so far back to win it as we did these Championships. But as a man who enjoys watching track races, I wanted to see for myself how does this crop of athletes stack up all time against the history’s other great kickers. Before getting to the results though, here are some important notes.
*The “300m Kick” splits on the Steeplechase results are not their actual splits from 300m out, but instead the kick from where 300m out would be in a standard track race. (On the 1500m start line). Thus, the splits given here are slightly faster than the actual result. However, each split will be impacted the same, so the comparison will still be fair across races. Ex) Beamish’s actual close was in 42.7 but for the purposes this list it will be listed as 41.9.
*For the sake time I have yet to look at the 10000m. If people want to see those splits and how Gressier compares to the likes of Geb, Bekele, Farah and Cheptegei, I’ll add on to this, and/or make one for the Women if people want that.
*Some races have very poor/unclear footage, so for the time being I’ll only be looking back to 1972. Some videos don’t show the leader at all crossing the appropriate split mark, so assumptions based on other angles and surrounding athletes had to be made. Though in these
rare cases, splits should still be accurate to within ~.2 seconds.
*As one last side note, don’t blindly trust splits that cannot be confirmed with video evidence, as it is very easy for splits to be fabricated (maliciously or not) and spread around. That’s why I’m hesitant when listening to Jim Ryun/Bo Jackson/Wilt Chamberlin type stories. One prime example I came across is Bob Shul in 1964. Great athlete, but he did not close in 38.7 as reported. His closing lap was a mid-54 with a 26.7 last 200m. His final 300m is likely a touch over 40.
I’ll leave you all with 2 quick takeaways.
1. I haven’t been able to find any other 5000m race in history (Championship or not), where someone closed in 12.5 seconds (If anyone knows one, please share). That includes 13-minute races, 14-minute races, nothing. Hocker did that in a 12:58 race. (Reportedly Hocker himself closed the 2021 Pac-12 5000m in 12.3, though I have seen no video evidence confirming that, so, if anyone has video of that race, please share that as well). Hocker was indeed in WR 1500m shape. And while it’s a shame we couldn’t see him in the 1500m final, Nader winning leads to even more storylines for the 1500m come 2026.
2. If you have never watched the 2003 World Championship steeplechase, DO IT! It is without exaggeration one of the best races of all time, and Shaheen was an absolute beast.