2025 Worlds: Can Grant Fisher or Nico Young win a 10,000 gold for America in Tokyo 61 years after Billy Mills?

The last 28 global champions in the 10,000 meters all have one thing in common: every single one of them was born on the continent of Africa. That is 10 straight Olympics and 18 straight World Championships where the rest of the world has been shut out of the gold, a drought of more than 40 years since Italy’s Alberto Cova won the 1984 Olympic title in Los Angeles. You’d have to go back to 1987 to find the last time a non-African-born man even medalled in the 10,000 at a World Championships.

Yet in 2025, two Americans have a legitimate chance to not just medal at Worlds, but win the whole thing. Grant Fisher, last year’s Olympic bronze medalist, and Nico Young, who defeated Fisher to win this year’s US title, are that good. Only one American, male or female, has ever won a global 10,000-meter title: Billy Mills, who used the kick heard ’round the world to win the 1964 Olympics. The location of that race? Tokyo. Which happens to be where this year’s Worlds are being held.

The men’s 10,000 is the first track final of the 2025 World Athletics Championships (September 14, 8:30 a.m. ET), and if recent history is anything to go by, it is going to be a good one. How did we get here? And could one of the Americans pull off a historic victory? Let’s break it down.

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The interregnum

For the last three decades, the men’s 10,000 meters has largely operated as a monarchy. A champion rises up and takes the crown and reigns until he abdicates or is overthrown by force. The period can be roughly divided into four eras: the Gebrselassie Era (1993-2000), the Bekele Era (2003-09), the Farah Era (2012-2017), and the Cheptegei Era (2019-24). Of the 24 gold medals handed out in the 10,000 meters since 1993, those four men have combined to win 21 of them.

You’ll notice that not every year is accounted for. Sometimes, there is a gap of a few years when the reigning king has grown too old and the new one is too young to replace him. An interregnum, if you will.

We may be in one such period right now. Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei abdicated his crown after Paris and moved to the roads after winning four of the last five gold medals. Some new talent may emerge in the next few years and rip off four golds in a row. But most of the contenders in Tokyo are guys who have been on the scene for a while.

So who will rise up and claim the title? There is no overwhelming favorite. All three Ethiopians — Berihu Aregawi, Yomif Kejelcha, and Selemon Barega — are formidable but not invincible – heck none of them even won the unofficially Ethiopian Trials. If you’re looking for a longer shot, Kenyans Edwin Kurgat and Ishmael Kipkurui and Sweden’s Andreas Almgren could also be in the mix. And of course, the Americans Fisher and Young are serious contenders. Let’s take a look at each group, starting with the Ethiopians.

The Ethiopians

Berihu Aregawi, 24 years old, 7:21/12:40/26:31 pbs
Best 10,000m finish: 2nd, 2024 Olympics

Why he could win: On paper, Aregawi is the favorite for this race. He has sparkling personal bests. He was the Diamond League 5,000m champion last season and won his only Diamond League race of 2025, running 12:50 in Shaoxing in May. And with Cheptegei absent, he is the top returner from last year’s Olympic final, earning the silver in Paris thanks to an incredible final 100 meters. Aregawi is often near the front in global 10,000m finals (he was 4th at the ’21 Olympics, 7th at the ’22 Worlds, and 4th at the ’23 Worlds) and has silver medals from World XC (2023 and 2024) and World Indoors (silver in the 5,000 this year behind Jakob Ingebrigtsen).

Why he may not win: Aregawi has a lot of silver medals, but no golds. He was also beaten in his last 10,000 at the Pre Classic on July 5 by 18-year-old Biniam Mehary, in a race that served as a de facto Ethiopian trials — though Mehary is only meant to be running the 5,000 in Tokyo (he is entered in the 10,000, presumably as the alternate). That was also Aregawi’s most recent race — though many of Ethiopia’s top athletes have not raced lately to focus on Worlds. Last year, the Olympic final was Aregawi’s first race for seven weeks and he ran great.

Yomif Kejelcha, 28 years old, 7:23/12:38/26:31 pbs
Best 10,000m finish: 2nd, 2019 Worlds

Why he could win: Kejelcha’s personal bests mark him as one of the most accomplished runners of his generation. He ranks in the top seven all-time in the 3k, 5k, and 10k, and as recently as February, he was the world record holder in both the indoor mile (3:47.01) and the half marathon (57:30). He has won four of his five races this year, most recently slaughtering the field in the Monaco Diamond League 5k, where he ran 12:49 to win by four seconds over eventual DL champ Jimmy Gressier.

Why he may not win: Kejelcha generally fares better in the faster races on the Diamond League circuit; for a runner of his caliber, his medal record at outdoor championships is atrocious. In seven global finals, Kejelcha has just one medal (10k silver in 2019), and his record is even worse recently: since that medal, Kejelcha has only finished in the top five once (5th in the 5k in 2023).

Plus the DL fields he beat in 2025 did not include Aregawi, Fisher, or Barega (he was 1-1 against Young). He did not run the 10k at Pre, but his agent Monica Pont said he chose to run that event at Worlds because he feels more competitive in the 10k.

Selemon Barega, 25 years old, 7:25/12:43/26:34 pbs
Best 10,000m finish: 1st, 2021 Olympics

Why he could win: Barega is the only guy in the field with a gold medal, having won the Olympic final on the same Tokyo track four years ago. Barega has good endurance and changes gears well, and he picked up a second medal in 2023, a bronze that would have been silver had Barega not let up early. He’s also got ridiculous range, running 2:05:15 to win the Seville Marathon in February and 3:32.93 for 1500 at the London Diamond League in July.

Why he may not win: Barega has not been able to build on his Olympic triumph the way you’d want him to, finishing 5th, 3rd, and 7th in the last three global 10k finals. He has also run only two track races this year and was 3rd at the Pre Classic 10k on July 5. You could spin that as a negative — he lost to two Ethiopians in that race — or a positive — he was coming back from marathon training and should be more track-ready now.

Longer shots worth noting

• Edwin Kurgat, Kenya: A Kenyan has not won a global title in the men’s 10,000 since 2001, but Kenyan men have six medals in the last six Worlds. Kurgat, the 2019 NCAA XC champ at Iowa State who now trains in Flagstaff for Under Armour Dark Sky Distance, was the top Kenyan at their trials at the Pre Classic but finished 2+ seconds behind the top three Ethiopians in that race.
• Ishmael Kipkurui, Kenya: The 20-year-old Kipkurui is a high-upside pick. He won the U20 race at World XC in 2023 and, running for the University of New Mexico, set an NCAA record of 26:50 and won the NCAA 10,000 title. He was only 5th in the Pre 10k, but his talent is undeniable.
• Benson Kiplangat, Kenya: Kiplangat was only 6th at the Pre 10k, but he was 3rd at World XC last year and is a former World U20 champ (5k in 2021).
• Andreas Almgren, Sweden: A former World U20 medalist in the 800 (he ran 1:45 in 2014), injuries shifted Almgren to the longer distances, where he has excelled since adopting double threshold training. He set a European record of 12:44 to win the 5k at the Stockholm DL in June.

The Americans

If Cheptegei was the king of the 10,000, he anointed his successor in Paris last summer when he told Grant Fisher, “You’ve got it next year” as they celebrated their medals. But Fisher knows that global titles are earned, not given. Fisher has steadily improved in each of his major championship 10k appearances (5th in 2021, 4th in 2022, 3rd in 2024); can he upgrade to gold in Tokyo?

Fisher set two world indoor records this winter (Kevin Morris photo)

Fisher started out hot in 2025, with double world records in the indoor 3,000 (7:22.91) and 5,000 (12:44.09) in February, and he won the titles at the first two Grand Slam Track meets in Kingston and Miramar (though he was outkicked in the 3k in the latter). Since then, Fisher has finished 2nd in his last four races — USAs in the 10k and 5k, then Diamond Leagues in Lausanne (5k) and Zurich (3k).

I noted after Zurich how Fisher’s results could be viewed as both good (he’s very consistent) and bad (he’s not winning) for his chances of winning in Tokyo. Fisher’s coach Mike Scannell told LetsRun.com that even though Fisher closed his final 1600 in 3:57.82 at USAs (57.33 final 400), he wasn’t happy with how Fisher looked late in the race.

“His legs weren’t right on that day,” Scannell said. “And that’s a coaching problem.”

After the meet, Scannell analyzed what went wrong and felt that Fisher could have had more pop in his legs had they handled the four days leading into the meet differently. So they tweaked their routine ahead of the Diamond Leagues — though Scannell wouldn’t say what, specifically, they changed. Scannell thinks the tweak worked. Even though Fisher was outkicked in both races, he was impressed by how Fisher’s legs responded. Worlds will be a 10k, not a 3k like the Diamond League final, which suits Fisher more. And had he not been bumped by Biniam Mehary with 110 to go in Zurich, Fisher may have won anyway.

“All in all, I walked away very happy from those,” Scannell said, adding that he believes Fisher’s current fitness is better than it was at last year’s Olympics.

The big question: how does Fisher choose to approach the race in Tokyo? In US finals, Fisher likes to make a long, hard push to the finish from three or four laps out. That’s a smart strategy to employ domestically, as Fisher is always one of the three strongest guys and the main objective is to finish in the top three. But in Tokyo, Fisher won’t just be hoping to finish in the top three, he’ll be hoping to win. And he may not be strong enough to drop guys like Aregawi and Kejelcha.

Internationally, Fisher prefers to react to moves rather than make them himself, but he has been upset by less-credentialed runners several times this year by holding off and allowing races to come down to the final 100. Will he be more decisive in Tokyo? Scannell, understandably, wouldn’t spill the beans completely. But he did offer a hint.

“The strategy that he used in Zurich will not be employed in Tokyo,” Scannell said. “He’s a strength runner. So you can infer whatever you’d like out of that.”

But Fisher isn’t the only American who could contend for the win in Tokyo. Nico Young was only 12th in last year’s Olympic final in Paris, but considering Young had just turned 22 years old, ran 26:58 (just six seconds off his pb), and the race came at the end of a very long collegiate campaign, the performance was more impressive than it looked on paper. In 2025, Young has taken a huge leap and has to be viewed as a legitimate medal threat at Worlds.

Young has two big wins this year, in two very different styles of race. In Oslo on June 12, he won his Diamond League debut in one of the finest 5,000-meter performances ever by an American. In that race, he ran fast (12:45.27, the fastest time ever by an American outdoors) and outkicked Biniam Mehary (who would win the 10k at Pre three weeks later). Seven weeks later, Young won a much slower race at USAs in the 10k (29:02.12) by running a 3:57.03 final 1600 to beat Fisher — another one of the best runners in the world. Young was 3rd in the 5,000 at USAs (behind Fisher and Cole Hocker) but has not competed since — an intentional decision.

Young’s coach Mike Smith believes that the flexibility of Young’s schedule as a professional — compared to strictures of the NCAA — has been one of the keys to his improvement, and he says Young is “really ready to compete” at Worlds.

“He thrives off of good, consistent blocks of training,” Smith told LetsRun.com. “I think the last block he had after USAs, he’s in phenomenal fitness.”

The third American in the race, 23-year-old Graham Blanks, has made nice progress in his first year as a professional, running pbs of 7:29/12:48/26:57 with a couple of strong runs in the Diamond League (3rd in Paris, 6th in the final in Zurich). He is not quite at the level of Fisher and Young, but he’s definitely got a shot to improve on his 9th-place finish from last year’s Olympic 5,000 final in Paris.

JG prediction

1) Aregawi 2) Fisher 3) Barega

Aregawi and Fisher were separated by just .02 in Paris last year, and I don’t think much will separate them in Tokyo, either. But I have to go with Aregawi. He has beaten Fisher in the 10,000 at two of the last three global championships (and that doesn’t count 2023, when Aregawi was 4th and Fisher missed due to injury). Aregawi has faster pbs in the 3k, 5k, and 10k. He has won five Diamond Leagues to Fisher’s zero. And, officially, he is four years younger (though they arrived on the world scene around the same time). Aregawi’s two-month break from racing after Pre is a minor concern, but as long as he has been healthy and training during that block, I’m picking him FTW.

Even though Young beat Fisher in the 10k at USAs, I like Fisher over Young at Worlds. The race won’t be as slow (even in hot and humid Tokyo, expect a winning time under 28:00), and Fisher won’t have to do as much work (expect Kejelcha or Aregawi to push it in the final mile). And remember, Fisher beat Young in the 5k at USAs. Their fitness is similar, but I’m giving Fisher the edge based on his experience in global championships.

Realistically, Fisher, Young, or any of the Ethiopians could win this one. Hell, it wouldn’t totally surprise me if Almgren wins it — he ran 12:44 FTW in Stockholm and was only .01 behind Fisher in the Diamond League final. It’s going to be a fantastic race.

Who do you think is the favorite? Talk about the race on our world-famous messageboard: LRC exclusive: Grant Fisher’s coach reveals his 10,,000 stategy (sort of) and Mike Smith talks up Nico Young’s fitness.