Defending champion Soufiane El Bakkali had taken residence on the podium since 2017, including the 2020 Olympics. Lamecha Girma had taken silver twice in a row and another at the Olympics. The difference this year was that Girma had taken down Saif Saaeed Shaheen's world record in Paris just over a month earlier. And he didn't just nip the record, he took a second and a half out of it, uncontested.
Nobody wanted to take the lead, that duty relegated to Simon Sundström in a pedestrian 67 first lap. But that wasn't slow enough so Leonard Bett slowed it down to a 69 and then 66's to get the field through 5 laps. Girma was always lurking about second place, now it was time to start racing. The next lap was just over 60 seconds. After spending a couple of laps at the back of the pack, El Bakkali drifted up to mark Girma. When the speed came, only Abraham Kibiwot was able to go with the big two. By the bell, he too had lost contact. On the first barrier after the bell, Kibiwot crashed. Nobody else was left in the picture. It wasn't the kind of breakaway speed the days of Ezekiel Kemboi, but El Bakkali pushed the backstretch to pull even with Girma with 200 to go.[2] He opened up a step going in to the last water jump and continued to pull away.[3] Even though El Bakkali slowed to wave at the crowd as he crossed the finish line, he still won by 10 metres. Far adrift from the leaders, Kibiwot came back to outsprint Bett to get the bronze. Including the Olympics it was three global championships in a row to have El Bakkali first, Girma second and a Kenyan in third.
Records
Before the competition records were as follows:[4]
