Jeremiah Azu Wins 2025 World Indoor 60-Meter Title in a Very Different-Looking Final

NANJING, China — Before Friday night, you had to go back 11 years to find the last time a British man medalled in the 60 meters at the World Indoor Championships. You had to go back another six years to find the last time an American failed to medal. Another 15 on top of that to find the last time an athlete from the southern hemisphere had earned a medal in track’s shortest event. And no Australian or South African man had ever won a medal.

All of those droughts were broken in the span of six-and-a-half seconds on Friday at the Nanjing Cube. Twenty-three-year-old Brit Jeremiah Azu backed up his European indoor title two weeks ago by running 6.49 to tie his personal best and narrowly defeat Australian Lachlan Kennedy for gold by one-hundredth of a second. South Africa’s Akani Simbine, the nearly-man of global sprinting over the last decade, finally earned his elusive first global medal by running 6.54 for bronze.

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So narrow was the margin that Azu had to wait a few extra seconds to see himself confirmed as the champion on the video board behind the start. Once it delivered the good news, he took off on a light-speed victory lap around the track — well, at least until he ran out of gas. To be fair to Azu, he had just run his third race of the day.

“[The victory lap] felt like 400 meters,” Azu said. “I got back to the (start of the) 60 and I was blowing, man. I was like, how do they do this?”

Until December, Azu had been coached by Marco Airale in Italy. But with his partner expecting their first child in March, he felt he needed to be close to home and relocated to Cardiff to rejoin his former coach Helen James. His son, Azaire, was born earlier this month, and will now get to grow up knowing his father is a world champion.

Just a month ago, Azu wasn’t even sure he was going to compete at the British Championships due to a quad injury. But he ran, and won, in 6.56. Two weeks after that, he ran, and won, the European Championships in the Netherlands. Now, two weeks after that, he is world champion. Azu said after the race that he feels he has faced a lot over the last few months on the path to becoming world champion, but he knows he is not alone in that respect.

“It’s life, you know,” Azu said. “Everyone’s going through stuff. I wouldn’t say that it’s me specifically. It’s not a sob story, it’s just the reality of life. And you’ve just got to keep it moving.”

Azu is the fourth British man to win the 60 at World Indoors, following Jason Gardener (2004), Dwain Chambers (2010), and Richard Kilty (2014). But no Australian had ever earned a medal in the event before today. And no Australian man had earned an individual sprint medal in any global championship since 1993. Kennedy himself had never run on an indoor track before this morning’s prelims — and stumbled after crossing the finish line as he forgot the track was banked on the curves.

“I just want to bring more eyes to Australian track & field,” Kennedy said. “Just because we’re far away from everything doesn’t mean we ain’t got what it takes to compete with the world’s best. It’s just an honor to represent the country and get a sprinting medal for them.”

Kennedy, 21, said his next goal is to break 10 seconds in the 100m (he ran a personal best of 10.03 in Perth on March 1).

Simbine was pleased to break his own personal medal drought, which has become an unwelcome part of his resume. One of the world’s best sprinters over the past decade, Simbine’s championship record is remarkably consistent — frustratingly so. He has made six of the last seven global 100m finals, yet in all six races, he finished either 4th or 5th.

Akani Simbine’s global 100m final results
2016 Olympics: 5th
2017 Worlds: 5th
2019 Worlds: 4th
2021 Olympics: 4th
2022 Worlds: 5th
2024 Olympics: 4th

Simbine, 31, did earn a silver medal with South Africa’s 4 x 100 relay last summer but tonight’s medal was the first he had earned in an individual global championship.

“It feels really great,” Simbine said. “Feels great to come to a competition that I don’t know anything about. I’ve never done the indoor circuit, I’ve never done the indoor championship.”

Simbine is a bigger name in the sprint world than Azu or Kennedy, but he felt like he was at a bit of a disadvantage in this meet. Prior to Worlds, his first and only indoor meet came just a month ago in Berlin, and he did little to prepare specifically for this.

“I’m still in a heavy, long block of training,” Simbine said. “We’d do starts once in a week, but the rest of the week is a big load. We didn’t prepare as the others would have prepared for indoors…Everybody knows my running style is after 60 meters, that’s when I take control. Now in this element, it’s so different because I have to get going in the beginning. And that’s a whole new challenge.”

Outdoor qualifiers for world indoors

Kennedy and Simbine’s medals were helped by a rule change that came into effect for these championships that allowed athletes to qualify with an outdoor performance. For someone like Kennedy to fly to Europe to chase a time in a 60m race would have been prohibitively expensive. Instead, he was able to race the distance a few times Down Under, and while he couldn’t quite replicate his 6.43 season’s best (which came with a +1.6 tailwind), he clearly showed he belonged. Simbine, likewise, ran two 60m races outdoors in South Africa prior to Worlds.

The podium was also more open than usual because the star power was dimmer than in recent years (Azu’s winning time of 6.49 was the slowest since the last British winner, Richard Kilty in 2014). Last year’s Worlds final in Glasgow pitted world record holder Christian Coleman (6.41 winning time) against reigning world 100m champion Noah Lyles (6.44 second). Two years before that, it was Coleman (6.41 2nd) against reigning Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs (6.41 1st). 2018 featured a prime Coleman (6.373 for the win, aka the fastest 60m man we’ve ever seen indoors) while 2016 had Trayvon Bromell (6.47) and Asafa Powell (6.50).

This year, Coleman, Lyles, and practically every other big-name American passed up a chance to make the team by skipping USA Indoors (Ronnie Baker was the top American in the final, finishing 6th in 6.59 before grabbing at his left quad across the finish line). When a country that has won six of the nine available medals in this event since 2018 isn’t sending its strongest team, there are going to be more medals for everyone else.