The 31-year-old middle distance runner previously travelled to the Japanese capital for the Olympics four years ago, but competed in an empty stadium due to pandemic restrictions.
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The confirmed @_Novuna GB & NI Team for the 2025 World Championships 👊#WCHTokyo25 pic.twitter.com/7N7y26mtaI
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Thankfully, the Japan National Stadium is set to be full to the rafters this time in what is Giles’ fourth World Championships, and the experienced middle-distancer runner is ready to embrace everything on offer.
He said: “It’s wildly different, even being in the airport greeting people and not having to quarantine or having the long queues in going through the process of getting through all the protocols.
“The roads now have people on them, so compared to last time it is a very different experience.
“It’s quite exciting to come back and experience the real Japan.”
Giles has competed for the majority of his career in the 800m, but Tokyo will be the second World Championships – after Budapest in 2023 – in which the Birchfield Harrier will step up in distance to run the 1500m.
He arrived in Japan on the back of a lighter schedule than in previous years, a deliberate change in approach in order to give him the best chance of performing at peak condition.
“Normally, I just race and race and race, and then I’m cooked for the Champs,” Giles said.
“What I was doing before wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be, so I just figured: ‘why don’t we just aim for the Champs and try and peak for the Champs’, rather than just run quick throughout the year but have no real mountain to climb.
“This has been more like a pinnacle attempt where we reach the top of the mountain rather than try to stay at the summit all-year round, which is just not possible because what goes up must come down.”
Giles set a new personal best in the mile of three minutes 49.16 seconds in Oslo, having broken the world road mile record in running 3:51.3 in Dusseldorf last year.
He is part of a very strong Great Britain middle distance team that includes the defending world 1500m champion Josh Kerr, former champion Jake Wightman and women’s Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson.
But the 31-year-old believes there is still work to do in order to be compared to the golden generation of Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, and Seb Coe from the 1980s.
“It’s hard to say right now,” he said, speaking at a Novuna-backed British camp – with the company financing the ambitions of millions across the UK, from helping business grow and individuals plan for the future, to backing British Athletics on the global stage.
“I think if we get a few more medallists – we’ve got Jake and Josh and Ben [Pattison] in the 800m, the female side is probably the best shape it’s ever been.
“I think there are similarities but it’s hard to rival the Cram, Coe and Ovett days – what they did was pretty mind-boggling, so I guess we would need to see a few more medals to call it a golden age.
“I’d say it’s probably the strongest across the board, male and female combined, but we have to do a bit more to say we could rival that era.”
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