Both men’s and women’s 100m finals are to be run seven minutes apart on the second day of the World Athletics Championships to be hosted by Tokyo, Japan, from September 13-21, 2025.

A release from World Athletics on Tuesday said the change is one of several innovations. Another is the move to end the championships with the men’s 4x100m relays rather than the men’s 4x400m event.

Tokyo is to host the championships for the second time — the third for Japan — after the 2007 edition was staged in Osaka.

The organisers said 14 of the 16 teams to contest each of the five relay events will qualify from the World Relay Championships set to be held in Guangzhou, China, in May next year.

The 100m races at the World Championships are set to start on the opening day with the first rounds. The semi-finals and finals are both set for the second day.

With the semi-finals and finals of the mixed 4x400m relay set for the first day, the finals of the other four relays, the 4x100m and 4x400m for men and women, are scheduled to be run on the final day when eight finals will be held during the final session. The two final events of the men’s decathlon are also set for the final day.

Qualifying for the championships started on Thursday, August 1 and will run through to August 24, 2025 for track and field athletes; for the marathon and 35km race walk, the window is between November 5, 2024 and May 4, 2025; and for the 10,000m, 20km race walk, combined events and relays, the window runs from February 25, 2024 to August 24, 2025.

“We are very pleased that the official timetable for the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 has been confirmed by the Council here in Paris, which allows ticket pre-sales to start right away,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said in the release.

“We are thrilled to be returning to Tokyo with the biggest stars of our sport who will light up the iconic stadium across nine days of awe-inspiring competition. They are sure to delight fans from Japan and around the world with their breathtaking performances.

“As one of the largest athletics stadiums in the world, the main stadium facilities in Tokyo are best in class — and the more than 40 million people in the Greater Tokyo area present massive growth opportunities for our sport,” Coe added.