• US runner takes title in 47.78 sec at World Championship

• Botswana’s Busang Collen Kebinatshipi wins men’s 400m

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran the fastest women’s 400 metres in 40 years to claim world championship gold in 47.78sec on Thursday and complete her transition from the one-lap hurdles in emphatic style. The American stormed through the Tokyo rain to add a first global gold in the flat 400m to the two Olympic and one world titles she won over the hurdles.

Not since the Iron Curtain cast a shadow over Europe, and sport was seen as war by other means across the Eastern bloc, has a woman run a 400m as fast as McLaughlin-Levrone did on this wet and wild Tokyo night.

• Controversial start-up reaches out to British athletes

• Olympic swimmer Ben Proud became first Briton to join

British athletes across multiple sports are being targeted by the Enhanced Games after the US sprint star Fred Kerley became the biggest name yet to sign up for the controversial event.

Kerley, the world 100m champion in 2022, said he was joining the Enhanced Games, which allows athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs that are banned in official events, to become the fastest man ever.

• Silver medal for Briton in Tokyo as injury thwarts Kerr

• Just 0.02sec separates first from second in 1500m final

When Jake Wightman sat on the bus to the 1500m heats at the World Athletics Championships on Sunday, he told himself that if he failed to make it through he was done. He was 31. His body was breaking down so often that he felt he had post‑traumatic stress disorder. And he feared his best days were behind him. Yet, just three days later, what had seemed like a final hurrah became a glorious resurrection.

What a fighter. What an athlete. What a 1500m final. Most expected this to be a shootout between Britain’s defending champion, Josh Kerr, and the young Dutch star Niels Laros. Instead the script was flipped on its head and ripped into pieces. Twice.

• American is targeting the 40-year 400m world record

• Kipyegon is first woman to win four 1500m world titles

First Tokyo witnessed the spectacular. Then came a divine act of Faith.

In the women’s 400m, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran one of the fastest times in history, easing down, to raise the question of whether one of the oldest – and most controversial – track and field records might fall this week.

• World champion says ‘only matter of time’ to run 9.6sec

• Seville dismisses effect of Noah Lyles’s mind games

On Sunday night, Oblique Seville became the first Jamaican to win the men’s 100m world title since Usain Bolt. But it turns out the 24-year-old’s mind is just as quick as his blistering leg speed.

In an interview to celebrate his victory, Seville was asked if he were to design a sprinter what would he look like. The questioner expected a long answer. Perhaps Justin Gatlin’s start, Michael Johnson’s mentality, and Bolt’s leg speed. But one word came back from Seville’s mouth almost instantaneously. “Usain.”

• He says his generation ‘just more talented’ than today’s

• Legendary sprinter no longer runs and is ‘into Lego now’

Usain Bolt made his comeback to the world of track and field on Sunday night and, for a moment, it was like the good old days. There was his trademark To Da World pose before the 100m finals. The cheers and adulation of 60,000 fans in Tokyo’s National Stadium. A reminder of glories past.

The 39-year-old Jamaican had not watched athletics at all since retiring in 2017 until seeing Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Oblique Seville win gold. And, as he also admitted, he now spends his time streaming movies and building Lego – and even gets out of breath when he walks up stairs.