The men's 1500 metres at the 2025 World Athletics Championships was held at the National Stadium in Tokyo on 14, 15 and 17 September 2025. Isaac Nader of Portugal won the event in 3:34.10, followed by Jake Wightman of Britain and Reynold Cheruiyot of Kenya. Several publications noted the unpredictability of the final, with many big names failing to advance, as well as Nader's surprise victory.
Summary Competitors in the event included defending champion Josh Kerr, 2022 champion Jake Wightman, and 2019 champion Timothy Cheruiyot, as well as 2020 Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen and 2024 Olympic champion Cole Hocker. Entering the event, Azeddine Habz of France held a world leading time of 3:27.49.
Qualification for the semi-finals and final was based on place only, with the first six finishers in each heat or semi-final qualifying for the next round. Neither Ingrebrigtsen, who had dealt with an Achilles tendon injury earlier in the season, nor Habz advanced to the semi-finals. In both semi-finals, the time of the sixth-place finisher was within 0.3 seconds of the winning time. 2023 bronze medalist Narve Gilje Nordås missed qualifying for the final by 0.01 seconds, as did Raphael Pallitsch. Hocker was disqualified after making contact with Robert Farken in the home stretch of his semi-final. Farken and Federico Riva were subsequently advanced to the final by the referee and the Jury of Appeals, respectively.
Final
Coming off the start line, a wall of about 6 competitors looked at each other trying to decide who would be relegated to lead. Laros became the nominee. Kerr notably made a beeline to the inner lane near the back of the pack. With his training partner on the front, Timothy went from the back of the pack to the front to form a wall that would last the first 650 metres when Timothy took his turn to lead the next lap. 950 metres into the race while being passed by Farken, Kerr jumped up and winced, even taking one step inside the curb. He started running awkwardly. The defending champion was out of the running.
As they approached the bell, the pack tightened up to 4 wide behind Cheruiyot and Laros. Finally on the backstretch, Wightman sprinted around the wall into the lead. With Wightman ahead, no other competitor got past the wall until the halfway up the home stretch, when Reynold edged ahead. Sprinting from fifth place, Isaac Nader went past all of them, catching Wightman 2 metres before the finish line. Reacting to the surprise challenge, Wightman made a desperate dip for the line, later falling to the track, tripping Reynold in the process. Nader looked up at the scoreboard confused until seeing the confirmation that he had won. Nader's winning time was around five seconds slower than the two previous runnings of the event at global championships. Writing for Reuters, Mitch Phillips described Nader as a "shock winner". The determined defending champion, Kerr still managed to finish in 4:11, fighting through the injury.
Records Before the competition records were as follows:
RecordAthlete & LocationDate World record3:26.00 Rome, Italy 14 July 1998 Championship record3:27.65 Seville, Spain 24 August 1999 World Leading 3:27.49 Paris, France 20 June 2025 African Record 3:26.00Rome, Italy 14 July 1998 Asian Record 3:29.14 14 July 2006 European Record 3:26.73 Fontvieille, Monaco 12 July 2024 North, Central American and Caribbean record 3:27.65 Paris, France 6 August 2024 Oceanian record 3:29.41 Oslo, Norway 15 June 2023 South American Record 3:33.25 Rieti, Italy 28 August 2005
Qualification standard The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 3:33.00.
Schedule The event schedule, in local time (UTC+9), was as follows:
Date Time Round14 September 09:35 Heats15 September 21:30 Semi-finals17 September 22:20 Final
Results Heats The heats took place on 14 September. The first six athletes in each heat ( Q ) qualified for the semi-finals.
Heat 1 Place Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Narve Gilje Nordås 3:35.90 2 Josh Kerr 3:35.98 3 Ethan Strand 3:36.27 4 Federico Riva 3:36.28 5 Stefan Nillessen 3:36.28 6 Tshepo Tshite 3:36.36 7 Azeddine Habz 3:36.62 8 Jochem Vermeulen 3:37.33 9 Pol Oriach 3:37.43 10 Fouad Messaoudi 3:37.83 11 Jude Thomas 3:38.19 12 Charles Grethen 3:41.18 13 Kazuto Iizawa 3:41.76 14 Kristian Uldbjerg Hansen 3:47.58 15 Hugh Kent 4:03.84
Heat 2 Place Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Pietro Arese 3:40.91 1 Isaac Nader 3:40.91 3 Niels Laros 3:41.00 4 Reynold Cheruiyot 3:41.17 5 Ruben Verheyden 3:41.45 6 Foster Malleck 3:41.53 7 3:41.55 8 Elliot Giles 3:41.60 9 Paul Anselmini 3:41.84 10 Adam Spencer 3:42.17 11 Håkon Moe Berg 3:42.24 12 Cathal Doyle 3:42.60 13 Heithem Chenitef 3:45.13 14 Ermias Girma 3:46.62 15 Yeshnil Karan 3:50.77
Heat 3 Place Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Cole Hocker 3:41.88 2 Robert Farken 3:42.06 3 Neil Gourley 3:42.13 4 Timothy Cheruiyot 3:42.20 5 Adrián Ben 3:42.27 6 Raphael Pallitsch 3:42.40 7 Nuno Pereira 3:42.63 8 Cameron Myers 3:42.75 9 Filip Sasínek 3:43.17 10 Sam Tanner 3:43.37 11 Pieter Sisk 3:43.50 12 Charles Philibert-Thiboutot 3:44.82 13 Ryan Mphahlele 3:45.22 14 Diego Lacamoire 3:57.42 15 Filip Rak 4:14.93
Heat 4 Place Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Jake Wightman 3:36.90 2 José Carlos Pinto 3:37.09 3 Jonah Koech 3:37.11 4 Romain Mornet 3:37.19 5 Samuel Pihlström 3:37.25 6 Andrew Coscoran 3:37.32 7 Anass Essayi 3:37.70 8 Jakob Ingebrigtsen 3:37.84 9 Joao Bussotti 3:38.38 10 Carlos Saez 3:40.61 11 Melese Nberet 3:41.54 12 Phanuel Koech 3:42.77 13 Yervand Mkrtchyan 3:48.21 14 Mukesh Pal 3:53.99 15 Kieran Lumb 3:55.04
Semi-finals The semi-finals took place on 15 September. The first six athletes in each heat ( Q ) qualified for the final.
Heat 1 Place Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Niels Laros 3:35.50 2 Josh Kerr 3:35.53 3 Jake Wightman 3:35.56 4 Timothy Cheruiyot 3:35.61 5 Andrew Coscoran 3:35.65 6 Samuel Pihlström 3:35.71 7 Narve Gilje Nordås 3:35.72 8 Ethan Strand 3:36.15 9 José Carlos Pinto 3:36.23 10 Ruben Verheyden 3:36.31 11 Romain Mornet 3:36.35 12 Pietro Arese 3:36.83
Heat 2 Place Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Reynold Cheruiyot 3:36.64 2 Adrián Ben 3:36.78 3 Isaac Nader 3:36.86 4 Jonah Koech 3:36.89 5 Neil Gourley 3:36.93 6 Tshepo Tshite 3:36.93 7 Raphael Pallitsch 3:36.94 8 Stefan Nillessen 3:37.12 9 Robert Farken 3:37.52 10 Foster Malleck 4:14.09 11 Federico Riva 4:14.31 — Cole Hocker
Final Place Athlete Nation Time Notes Isaac Nader 3:34.10 Jake Wightman 3:34.12 Reynold Cheruiyot 3:34.25 4 Timothy Cheruiyot 3:34.50 5 Niels Laros 3:34.52 6 Robert Farken 3:35.15 7 Federico Riva 3:35.33 8 Adrián Ben 3:35.38 9 Tshepo Tshite 3:35.50 10 Neil Gourley 3:35.56 11 Samuel Pihlström 3:35.74 12 Andrew Coscoran 3:35.87 13 Jonah Koech 3:37.00 14 Josh Kerr 4:11.23
References