TOKYO -- Australia is sending a team of 86 track and field stars to the 2025 World Athletics Championships, which gets underway on Saturday morning in Japan. It's the largest contingent that has ever represented the nation at a major international athletics meet.
Here are eight Australian names that should be front of mind ahead of what's sure to be a blockbuster nine-day program.
Gout Gout
Men's 200m
Obviously Gout had to make this list. The 17-year-old sprint phenom may only just be at the beginning of his career but is already a household name and someone who has the potential to become one of Australia's all-time great athletics stars.
This year's championships in Tokyo offer the first real opportunity for Gout to test himself against the world's best sprinters, including American Noah Lyles and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, the respective 100m and 200m champions from last summer's Olympic Games in Paris.
Tokyo will be a serious step up in class for the Queensland schoolboy, but a much needed early taste of what's to come in Los Angeles in 2028, and beyond.
Gout will not contest the 100m event this week, instead opting to focus on his preferred 200m distance, an event he currently holds the Australian record in with a time of 20.02s. Expect Gout to challenge for a place in the semifinals on night six of the championships.
Jess Hull
Women's 800m, 1500m
Once again, Hull enters an athletics meet as a likely medal winner in the women's 1500m, a race that's been dominated by Kenya's Faith Kipyegon in recent times.
Hull, a four-time Australian national champion and the silver medallist from Paris last summer, owns the season's fourth-best time in the event with a 3:52.67 set at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene in July. However, in that same race, Kipyegon broke her own world record with a blistering 3:48.68 run.
This year, Hull won bronze in the 3000m at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Nanjing before taking third place in that aforementioned race, behind Kipyegon and Ethiopia's Diribe Welteji. Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia has also emerged as a medal chance this week, after storming to victory in a time of 3:50.62 at the Poland Diamond League in Chorzów last month.
Hull will also contest the 800m distance in Tokyo, an event she ranks 24th in the world.
Nicola Olyslagers
Women's high jump
Australia's greatest gold medal chance at the World Athletics Championships is undoubtedly going to be Olyslagers in the high jump.
The 28-year-old from New South Wales won silver at the Olympic Games last year and has taken monumental strides over the past 13 months since. Olyslagers has won four of the last five competitions she's entered, including last month's Diamond League final meeting in Zurich, in which she set a new national record with a clearance of 2.04m.
Olyslagers' greatest rival for gold this week will be Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh. She jumped a world record 2.10m to win gold in Paris last summer, but has only managed to clear 2.02m this season.
The women's high jump will also be contested by Australia's Eleanor Patterson, who won bronze at the Olympics last year and has a personal best of 2.02m.
Liam Adcock
Men's long jump
Adcock has been a permanent fixture on the long jump circuit for close to a decade, but over the past 12 months his rapid improvement has catapulted him into serious medal contention at major meets, including this week's World Athletics Championships.
The 29-year-old Australian shattered his personal best by 6cm with a jump of 8.34m to take out the Golden Gala Diamond League title in Rome earlier this year. That effort remains the equal third-best jump by anyone on the planet in 2025.
Adcock's exceptional performance in Italy followed a bronze medal at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Nanjing in March, and a second place finish at the Diamond League in Xiamen to begin the year.
He's confident, in red-hot form and should be on the radar of every Australian this week as he jumps for gold.
Olivia Sandery
Women's 35km race walk
South Australian-based Sandery will be one to watch on opening day of these world championships, with the women's 35km race walk kicking off the action-packed nine-day program in Tokyo.
Sandery, who is trained by Australian race walk icon Jarred Talent, competed at the Olympic Games last summer in the women's 20km walk, though failed to finish the race. Later in the year, she overcame a 3.5-minute penalty to shatter the Australian record in the 35km distance, taking out the national race walking championship in Melbourne in a time of 2:45:31.
This year has been even more successful for Sandery. In March, she bettered her personal best mark in the 35km race to 2:42:40 -- a new Oceania record -- in winning the All-Japan Race Walking Championships in Nomi. Her time in that race was the seventh-quickest posted by anyone this year.
At just 22 years of age, Sandery is the youngest of the top 15-ranked women's race walkers on the planet.
Matt Denny
Men's discus
Australia's bronze medallist from the Paris Olympics will be chasing more silverware this week in Tokyo, and you'd be brave to back against him.
The 29-year-old set a new national discus record earlier this year with a throw of 74.78m in Ramona, Oklahoma, an effort that would have been good enough for a world record had superstar Lithuanian rival Mykolas Alekna not twice thrown further in the same meet. For Denny, his throw was an improvement of over five metres from his Olympic best 12 months ago.
READ: Everything you need to know about the World Athletics Championships
Two months later at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland, Denny again finished runner-up, this time to Slovakia's Kristjan Čeh, and this time by just nine centimetres.
Denny, who is currently ranked No. 2 in the world, will again have to contend with Alekna, who threw 75.56m in Ramona, and Čeh, as well as Jamaica's reigning Olympic champion Roje Stona.
Jack Rayner
Men's 5000m
Rayner, Australia's multi-talented long distance star, will be focusing on the 5000m this week in Tokyo, an event he set a new national record in with a blistering 12:59.43 -- 2:36 pace per kilometer -- at an indoor meet in Boston to open the season.
The 29-year-old from Melbourne has long been tipped for greatness but has been forced to deal with several injuries in recent years. Rayner took a stress fracture in his femur into the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics four years ago and withdrew inside the first 10 kilometers. Bone stress in his hip then ruined his chances of making the Paris Olympic team last year.
Rayner has the pedigree to succeed on the world stage. He owns the Australian record in the 10000m and has triumphed in major races right up to the marathon distance. He will be joined by fellow Australian Ky Robinson in the 5000m in Tokyo.
Claudia Hollingsworth
Women's 800m
Last month, emerging middle distance mega talent Hollingsworth shattered the long-standing Australian record in the 800m with a dazzling display at the Diamond League meet in the Chorzów.
The 20-year-old stopped the clock in 1:57.67s to finish fifth in a race taken out by Britain's Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson. Only 13 women on the planet have clocked a quicker time than that this season, none of them younger than the Victorian.
Like Gout, these world championships will offer a great learning opportunity for Hollingsworth ahead of the Olympic Games in 2028. Hollingsworth is more than capable at the 1500m distance but will only be contesting the 800m this week in Tokyo.