The year's best athletes

Once more it's the time where we must make the balance sheet of the year, and decide which athletes have been outstanding in their performances. It goes without saying that the list I will present is 100% subjective. It corresponds to my preferences for certain athletes and the fact that there some others that I cannot stand. (But, then, I don't think that any "best of" list can ever be 100% objective) 

The year 2025 has been particularly rich due to the presence of the World Championships that focused the efforts of all the athletes who could hope to obtain a qualification for Tokyo, and for the best of them, to shine there.

Let us start with the queens of Athletics. Just as in 2024 I could not decide between the two best female athlete. And, what is more, one of them was my choice for best athlete for 2021, 2022, and 2024 already. But I cannot help it. I am convinced that S. McLaughlin(-Levrone) is the best athlete out there. 

But, just like last year, I could not really claim that this year she was better that B. Chebet. Both are great and for me, they share the top position on my year's best podium. S. McLaughlin ran the second best ever 400 m with 47.78 s. B. Chebet was the first woman to break the 14 minute barrier in the 5000 m. Both won two gold medals in the World Championships.

Faith Kipyegon was co-number one last year. She broke the 1500 m world record with 3:48.68 this year and won the same event in Tokyo. However she was beaten by Chebet in the 5000 m final and thus, in my list, she has to content herself with second place. 

I reserved the third place for the new combined events star, A. Hall. She broke the 7000 points barrier in June, tying, with 7032 points, the performance of K. Kluft, which, as I have explained, should have been the world record. And, on top of this, she improved the looong-standing heptathlon 800 m record with 2:01.23. (And to cap it all, she is an accomplished low-hurdler with a 54.42 s personal best).

P. Jepchrichir has an almost unique place among female marathoners having won both the olympic (2021) and world (2025) titles. She joins the great R. Mota in this select list, but unlike Mota, who won her titles in two consecutive years, 1987 and 88 (just like the male champions , G. Abera, 2000 and 01, and S. Kiprotich, 2012 and 13), Jepchrichir won the second title 4 years after the first, a proof of athletic longevity.

M. Jefferson-Wooden went home from Tokyo with 3 gold medals. With 10.61 s she is 4th in the all-time best list for 100 m. With 21.68 s in the 200 m she is 7th in front of A. Felix and just behind the great M. Ottey. And when you count her relay titles from 2022 and 2023, MJW has, at 24, five world titles already. 

The world discus title was what was V. Allman was missing. Despite having won the olympic title twice, in 2021 and 2024, she had to wait till 2025 in order to become world champion. Add to this the fact that, with her 73.52 m throw from April, she sits in the 6th position of the all-time list, accompanying throwers from the pre-doping-control era, and you can see why she is topping my list of field champions.

C. Rogers is the other great thrower who is making my top list. Her last defeat in major competition (world or olympic) goes back to 2022. Since then she amassed one olympic and two world titles. Her winning throw of 80.51 m in Tokyo, places her second to the great A. Wlodarczyk in the all-time hammer lists.

T. Davis-Woodhall is, step by step, becoming the number one female long jumper. She was second behind I. Spanovic in Budapest but since then she has garnered two world (indoor in 2024 and outdoor this year) and an olympic (last year) titles. Moreover she is regularly jumping over 7 m since 2021.

The other jumper I would like to include in my list is N. Olyslagers. A 2 m high-jumper since 2021 she has been contenting herself with places on the podium (twice silver in the Olympics, bronze in 2023 World's) but 2025 was to be her year. She won the Diamond League final with 2.04 m and went on to win the world title in Tokyo, adding the outdoor title to the two indoor ones she had won in 2024 and earlier this year.

I cannot move on to the men's list without mentioning two more great athletes who have been somewhat eclipsed by the achievements of the preceding stars. M. Paulino lost the 400 m title to S. McLaughlin. However her 47.98 s performance puts her third in the all-time list and ahead of J. Kratoshvilova who, with 47.99 s held the championships record from 1983. The second is F. Bol who won her second world title in the 400 m hurdles. Her time in 51.54 s is better than the time with which D. Muhammad won silver in the Tokyo Olympics, and Bol has a 50.95 s personal best placing her behind only McLaughlin. But still Bol has never beaten McLaughlin in a direct head-to-head race. To tell the truth, the decision to include her in my list was a last-minute one, spurred by Bol's intrepid decision to move to the 800 m from next year. I do like athletes who do not hesitate to take on a challenge. 

The men's crown goes, once more to A. Duplantis. He has been number-one in my list of year's best in 2020 and 2022-23-24 and is topping the list once more this year. He took the world record at 6.16 m and over the years he lifted it to 6.30 m. Fortunately, thanks to the presence of E. Karalis, he is not the only pole vaulter to jump regularly over 6 m. But the truth is, he is a class of his own. Somehow I am tempted to put him above the list and to attribute him not simply gold but, let's say, diamond so that I have place for one of more "first".  

And for the year's best I chose two throwers who excelled in Tokyo. R. Crouser is the best shot putter ever. He has three world and three olympic titles. He holds the world record with 23.56 m. And this year, nursing an injury, he managed to win once more the world title. 

E. Katzberg is 10 years younger than Crouser, at 23, an infant by hammer throw standards. And, still, he has already two World and one Olympic titles. His 84.70 m throw in Tokyo places him 5th in the all time list, but if we count only post-doping-control athletes he is second only to K. Murofushi.

E. Wanyonyi was my rising star last year when he won the 800 m in the Olympics. He could have kept that position this year but I preferred to move him to the podium of the "grown-ups". His race in Tokyo showed that he is not only a great runner but a fine tactician as well. If anybody can go for the 1:40 barrier, that's Wanyonyi.

I reserved the final place on the podium to L. Neugebauer. Everybody expected him to win the olympic title last year but he had to settle for silver. His decathlon victory this year came after a hard fight with A. Owens-Delerme, where the latter had a serious chance at winning. But Neugebauer resisted and kept a small margin sufficient for gold. If he manages to streamline a decathlon in a more relaxed competition he is capable to go for Mayer's world record.

Having mentioned a french champion I do not hesitate to reserve the next position in my list to the french revelation in Tokyo, J. Gressier. He ran two very clever races, winning one and obtaining bronze in the other. And he was the winner of the Diamond League final over 3000 m. 

A jamaican spinter, O. Seville, occupies the next place. I would have added also K. Thompson, since the two won the first two places in the 100 m depriving N. Lyles of gold. But the elimination of the jamaican 4x100 m was, to my eyes, due to a mistake of K. Thompson, who started too early, making it impossible to R. Forde to catch him, so it's only Seville who enters the top list.

C. Tinch dominated the 110 m hurdles. He is the world leader with 12.87 s. He did not make the final two years ago in Budapest and was not qualified last year for Paris. But 2025 was his year. He won all five Diamond League meetings in which he took part as well as the final, running five times under 13 seconds. (And he is a 8 m+ long jumper).

The final place in my list goes to a veteran of the javelin K. Walcott. We discovered him in 2012 when, after having won the World U20 championships, went to London and won the Olympic title. That was a major surprise and was waved away by many as a "lucky win". But four years later he was again on the podium, winning bronze in Rio. With 90.16 m personal best he is part of the exclusive club of 90-plusers. In Tokyo he prevailed in a final where 6 participants had better personal bests that him. He really deserves his place in the top list.

World Athletics introduced last year a new classification for the year's best athletes distinguishing track, field and, what they call, "out of stadium" best. In the case of women, given my list, the three winners would have been McLaughlin/Chebet, Hall and Jepchrichir. For men that would be Wanyonyi, Duplantis while for road events I hesitate between S. Sawe, who won in London and Berlin, and J. Kiplimo who won in Chicago, with a slight preference for the first. (Had Kiplimo managed to break the world record as he planned he would have been indisputably the number-one out of stadium runner).