THE ROAD TO OREGON22: Actin' a fool on I-5...

EUGENE--Even though there were no planes, or baggage transfers involved, there's a bit of a scramble involved whenever you travel for the World Athletics Outdoor Championships, and Eugene was a bit of a scramble, mainly due to my lack of pre-event preparation, due to work circumstances.

Yet, here we are one night before the start of the 18th World Athletics Outdoor Championships, and the 15th I've covered in my career, which means I'm a fossil running around with these young whipper snappers.

On the drive from Seattle, which actually started Wednesday afternoon, and ended with a stop in Salem for the night, since I wasn't allowed to check into my hotel early in Eugene, it was refreshing to act a fool in the car, jamming to music as diverse as Earth Wind & Fire, Drake, Metallica, Luke Bryan, Avicii etc., while not giving a rat's tail what the other drivers were thinking as I bobbed my head to the music.

Upon arriving in Eugene, I went through what seemed like the longest line to get my media credential, as we found some inefficiencies in the line that were not present at previous world championships. But once we got through that, it was all good, and it was nice to see many colleagues, photographers, and writers that I've gone to battle with from Tokyo to Doha, and all places in between.

There were some significant news broken today, the most notable of which is that the 2025 World Athletics Outdoor Championships were awarded to Tokyo, Japan; and that the 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships will be held in Medulin and Pula in Croatia and the 2026 World Athletics Cross Country Championships will be held in Tallahassee, Florida.

The 2025 World Athletics Championships will see the sport’s biggest stars return to Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, venue for last year’s Olympic Games, in the year that the Japanese Association of Athletics Federations (JAAF) celebrates its centennial.

The World Athletics Cross Country Championships will return to the USA for the first time since 1992, when Boston hosted the event. New York also staged the event in 1984.

World Athletics' release is available here.

TO THE MATTER AT HAND...

The World Track & Field Championships starts Friday, with four Washington athletes starting things off.

Vancouver native and Columbia River HS grad Dan Nehnevaj (photo courtesy World Athletics/Getty Images) opens in the 20 k walk at 3:10 pm on the road course outside Autzen Stadium.

He'll be followed back at Historic Hayward Field at 5:15 pm by one of the newest Washington Huskies, as Princeton grad Ed Trippas, who will use his remaining NCAA eligibility this fall at Montlake, goes in the heats of the 3000 steeplechase for Australia, where he was an Olympian last year.

Defending Olympic pole vault champion and former Pullman resident Katie Nageotte looks to add a world championship medal to her Olympic medal in the qualifying rounds that start at 5:20 pm.

Marta Pen Freitas of Portugal and the Brooks Beasts runs in the heats of the women's 1500 starting at 6:10 pm.

As we've done in the past, here is a downloadable viewers' guide with short bio information on the athletes with ties to the state of Washington competing in the World Athletics Championships here in Eugene.

NOTE: World Athletics and the Oregon22 organizing committee contributed to this report.

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