The men's 200 metres at the 2023 World Athletics Championships was held at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest from 23 to 25 August 2023. The winning margin was 0.23 seconds.

Summary As the carts were bringing the semi-finalists to the track from the warm-up area, one cart T-boned the other. Andrew Hudson received minor injuries with broken glass getting into his eye. The first semi was moved to last in the order to give Hudson and the other athletes a chance to recover. A relaxed defending champion Noah Lyles came through as the #1 qualifier. Hudson finished fourth in the semi-final, but was granted the extra lane in the final.

In the final, the start was fairly even, with the exception of Joseph Fahnbulleh's notoriously slow start, accentuated by Hudson's fast start in lane 1 next to him. As they were beginning to exit the turn, the three Americans, Lyles, Erriyon Knighton, and Kenny Bednarek, along with Letsile Tebogo all on the outside of the tracking Zharnel Hughes, were still even. With Lyles' notorious closing speed, that was bad news for the other competitors. From there, true to form, Lyles opened a gap that continued to widen to the finish. The next two runners to gain separation were the youngsters, 19 year old Knighton, then 20 year old Tebogo. Lyles had 3 metres over Knighton at the finish. Knighton was barely a metre clear of Tebogo. Lyles' 19.52 winning time equalled the #14 time in history, tied with two previous efforts from Lyles (but he's also run faster on four other occasions). Knighton's 19.75 means he owns all of the top 12 times ever run by a U20 athlete. This World Championship title was a three-peat for Lyles and completed the second leg of his pre-meet announced plan to take three gold medals.

Records Before the competition records were as follows:

RecordAthlete & LocationDate World record19.19Berlin, Germany20 August 2009Championship recordWorld Leading19.47London, United Kingdom23 July 2023African Record19.50Asian Record19.8821 July 2019European Record19.72Mexico City, Mexico12 September 1979North, Central American and Caribbean record19.19Berlin, Germany20 August 2009Oceanian record20.06Mexico City, Mexico16 October 1968South American Record19.81Berlin, Germany20 August 2009

Qualification standard The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 20.16 seconds.

Schedule The event schedule, in local time (UTC+2), was as follows:

Date Time Round23 August 12:15 Heats24 August 20:20 Semi-finals25 August 21:50 Final

Results

Round 1 (heats) Round 1 took place on 23 August. The first 3 athletes in each heat ( Q ) and the next 3 fastest ( q ) qualified for the semi-final.

Heat 1 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 4 Zharnel Hughes 19.99 2 2 Aaron Brown 20.08 3 5 Luxolo Adams 20.15 , 4 8 Shota Iizuka 20.27 , 5 7 Taymir Burnet 20.31 , 6 3 Eseosa Desalu 20.49 7 6 Gediminas Truskauskas 20.90 8 9 Franko Burraj 21.52 Wind: 0.0 m/s

Heat 2 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 8 Noah Lyles 20.05 2 4 Andrew Hudson 20.25 3 9 Ondřej Macík 20.40 4 3 Tapiwanashe Makarawu 20.64 5 5 Ján Volko 20.69 6 2 Jorge Vides 20.80 7 1 Ko Seung-hwan 21.09 8 6 Leroy Kamau 21.18 9 7 Jessy Franco 22.04 Wind: -0.1 m/s

Heat 3 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 7 Letsile Tebogo 20.22 2 5 Joseph Fahnbulleh 20.42 3 9 William Reais 20.50 4 3 Joshua Hartmann 20.51 5 2 Blessing Akwasi Afrifah 20.73 6 6 Aidan Murphy 20.90 7 4 Marcos Santos 21.05 8 8 Hachim Maaroufou 21.29 Wind: -1.4 m/s

Heat 4 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 8 Brendon Rodney 20.14 , 2 6 Renan Correa 20.44 3 2 Shaun Maswanganyi 20.56 4 5 Koki Ueyama 20.66 5 3 Nadale Buntin 20.90 5 4 Zoltán Wahl 20.90 7 7 Mohamed Obaid Alsadi 21.39 9 James Dadzie Wind: -0.2 m/s

Heat 5 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 8 Towa Uzawa 20.34 2 7 Courtney Lindsey 20.39 3 3 Rasheed Dwyer 20.40 4 5 Tarsis Gracious Orogot 20.44 5 4 Yang Chun-han 20.82 6 9 Ramil Guliyev 20.89 7 6 21.20 2 Emmanuel Eseme Wind: -0.2 m/s

Heat 6 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 9 Erriyon Knighton 20.17 2 7 Andre De Grasse 20.28 3 8 Sinesipho Dambile 20.34 4 3 Filippo Tortu 20.46 5 6 Joseph Amoah 20.56 6 5 Sibusiso Matsenjwa 20.88 7 2 Guy Maganga Gorra 21.04 8 4 Yeykell Eliuth Romero 21.71 Wind: -0.5 m/s

Heat 7 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 5 Kenneth Bednarek 20.01 2 7 Alexander Ogando 20.14 3 6 Alaba Akintola 20.54 4 3 Alonso Edward 20.63 5 4 20.86 6 9 Taha Hussein Yaseen 21.01 7 8 Albert Komański 21.16 2 Ryan Zeze Wind: -0.1 m/s

Semi-final The semi-final took place on 24 August, with the 24 athletes involved being split into 3 heats of 8 athletes each. The first 2 athletes in each heat ( Q ) and the next 2 fastest ( q ) will qualify for the final. Heat 1 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 8 Noah Lyles 19.76 2 6 Alexander Ogando 20.02 3 3 Tarsis Gracious Orogot 20.26 4 7 Brendon Rodney 20.27 5 9 Andrew Hudson 20.38 R 6 4 Luxolo Adams 20.44 7 2 Shota Iizuka 20.54 8 6 Ondřej Macík 20.71 Wind: -0.1 m/s

Heat 2 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 7 Kenneth Bednarek 19.96 2 6 Letsile Tebogo 19.97 3 5 Courtney Lindsey 20.22 4 9 Sinesipho Dambile 20.28 5 4 Renan Correa 20.43 6 3 Taymir Burnet 20.65 7 2 Alaba Akintola 8 Aaron Brown Wind: 0.0 m/s

Heat 3 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 6 Erriyon Knighton 19.98 2 7 Zharnel Hughes 20.02 3 5 Andre De Grasse 20.10 4 4 Joseph Fahnbulleh 20.21 5 8 Towa Uzawa 20.33 6 9 Rasheed Dwyer 20.49 7 3 Shaun Maswanganyi 20.65 8 2 William Reais 20.67 Wind: -0.4 m/s

Final The final started at 21:54 on 25 August. Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time Notes 6 Noah Lyles 19.52 8 Erriyon Knighton 19.75 9 Letsile Tebogo 19.81 4 4 Zharnel Hughes 20.02 5 7 Kenneth Bednarek 20.07 6 3 Andre De Grasse 20.14 7 5 Alexander Ogando 20.23 8 1 Andrew Hudson 20.40 9 2 Joseph Fahnbulleh 20.57 Wind: -0.2 m/s

References