The year’s best athletes: my choice

Yes, it’s that time of year when, imitating World Athletics, I present the list of the athletes who (to my eyes, obviously) have distinguished themselves during the 2026 season. Is there any need to repeat that my list is totally subjective? Those who follow my blog know very well that, if I don’t like somebody, I will do my best to forget him or her when compiling my list and, if this turns out to be impossible, at least minimise his or her presence.

Marileidy Paulino is my choice for the year’s top female athlete. She was unbeaten in all the races she participated in this year (from 200 to 800 m), including the Ultimate Championship. Her top performance, 48.48 s in the 400 m, came early in the year and is half a second slower than her 47.98 s from last year’s World Championships, but this year she was unchallenged in her specialty distance and did not have to push herself as she did in 2025.

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden dominated the short sprints, winning the Ultimate champion’s title. Her time over 200 m, 21.47 s, places her third on the all-time list, behind Flo-Jo and S. Jackson. (Speaking of sprint queens, I cannot fail to mention Amy Hunt and her superb four-gold gambit at this year’s Europeans).

Masai Russell broke the world record for the 100 m hurdles with 12.09 s and went on to win the Ultimate championship title. Her only defeat this year came over a non-specialty 200 m. She won all the hurdles races, and when one realises how difficult it is to be consistent over the hurdles, her 100% success rate acquires another dimension.

I would have placed Tigst Assefa on the podium alongside Russell had she succeeded in breaking the mixed-race women’s marathon world record as well, last month in Berlin. Unfortunately, she was unable to maintain her blistering pace over the last two kilometres and finished with 2:11:04, which is still the third-best time ever. In case you wonder, she holds the women-only record with 2:15:41, from the London Marathon.

A. Werro had an incredible summer season, dominating the 800 m despite the presence of K. Hodgkinson and F. Bol. Her time of 1:53.70 places her less than half a second from Kratochvilova’s 40-year-old record.

Faith Cherotich dominated the women’s 3000 m steeplechase this year and, to my eyes, she is the real heir to the great Beatrice Chepkoech, perhaps even more so than W. Yavi (of whom I am a great fan—but more on her later).

Ziyi Yan threw twice over 70 m in the javelin, something we had not seen since 2008, the golden year of Barbora Spotakova. She is now half a metre from the latter’s world record and, given that she is just 18 years old, I believe we are ready to witness a new record, perhaps as early as next year.

Women’s shot put is definitely making progress. Chase Jackson finished the year with 21.14 m (very close to the unofficial world record of V. Adams) and Jessica Schilder was not far behind with 21.09 m. S. Mitton and Y. Ogunleye also had performances over 20 m.

Winfred Yavi had a so-so season, but she ended it in the most spectacular way, winning the 10000 m, 3000 m steeplechase and 5000 m at the Asian Championships. I don’t think anybody else, man or woman, has ever done so at a continental championship.

Speaking of multiple victories brings us to Nadia Battocletti, who repeated her 2024 feat by winning both the 5000 m and 10000 m at this year’s European Championships.

The list of ten appears short when it comes to mentioning all the athletes who have distinguished themselves. C. Rogers was indisputably the top hammer thrower this year. With 81.13 m, she sits in second place on the all-time list, behind only the great Anita Wlodarczyk. Larissa Iapichino was probably the most consistent long jumper, winning European and Ultimate titles and breaking her mother’s Italian record. The triple jump saw three athletes excel: Thea Lafond signed the year’s best performance with 15.25 m, Davidsleydi Velazco improved her personal best by close to half a metre with 15.13 m, and Saly Sarr grabbed the Ultimate title and a new best of 15.08 m. Valarie Allman-Sion was less dominant in the discus this year but managed to throw over 73 m once again (in Ramona, where else?). And it has been quite some time since we have seen a female pole vaulter clear 5 m. Sandi Morris, once the Ultimate champion’s crown was secured at 4.90 m, took two tries at 4.95 m and then raised the bar to 5 m (her personal best from 2016). She did not succeed, but it was a great moment (and a moving comeback from an athlete who, had she been able to adapt her technique to her physical means, would have been number one in the discipline).

Alison Dos Santos is my choice for the year’s top male athlete. I remember how, in the 1980s, we were amazed by Edwin Moses being able to run the 400 m hurdles in 13 strides. Dos Santos is running in 12 strides up to the sixth hurdle, which means that he is equally at ease with both legs over the hurdles (something that Warholm has never managed, which makes for sometimes disastrous race endings when he switches from 13 to 15 strides). Dos Santos ran twice under 46 s this year, and I don’t think he has reached his maximum.

Sebastian Sawe was the first man to run an official marathon under two hours, with 1:59:30, and Yomif Kejelcha was the most unlucky one in this race, finishing a mere 10 seconds behind. (Jacob Kiplimo also dipped under the previous world record, in 2:00:28). But Sawe was first, and so he is the one on the second step of my podium.

Mondo Duplantis is again on the podium, but as of this year he is not the unchallenged champion of the pole vault. Manolo Karalis is now regularly pushing Duplantis to his limits, and the duo is offering us competitions at breath-taking heights. Can you imagine jumping 6.20 m and finishing second, or having two athletes make an attempt at a would-be world record—something seen only once, I think, in the Vigneron–Bubka duel at the Rome Golden Gala in 1984, where Vigneron took Bubka’s 5.90 m record with 5.91 m and Bubka riposted with 5.94 m?

Gian-Marco Tamberi is, to my eyes, the best high jumper (although, to be honest, I would have said the same thing about Barshim). What he did at both the Europeans and the Ultimate Championship were not only great athletic accomplishments but also probably the most memorable moments of the year. As you can guess, I have a weakness for charismatic people, and Tamberi is definitely one.

Were we to look for a character totally different from Tamberi, Miltos Tentoglou is an excellent candidate. Reserved and serious, he approaches his discipline, which he has been dominating for years, in a particularly focused and calm way. His personality may come across as a bit dry, but there are few athletes as reliable as Miltos. I have always been impressed by his technical analyses, which lack any attempt at building a public image. And I am really glad that the black days of 2025 are now a thing of the past.

Busang Kebinatshipi dominated the 400 m but paid a relative price when he decided to change his usual race strategy, going all out in the first half of the race during the Ultimate Championship. As a result, he had to content himself with a time of 43.39 s, which is not even a world-leading one. Still, I believe that if anyone can go for the 43-second barrier, it’s Kebinatshipi.

Kenny Bednarek won both the short sprint races, taking the Ultimate champion’s title and beating world champions Tebogo and Seville in the process. Ja’Kobe Tharp ran six times under 13 s in the 110 m hurdles, with a new world record of 12.75 s early in the season. And he is just 21 years old.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen came back to competition after almost a year’s absence and stunned everybody by winning a European title over 5000 m. He went on to add the Ultimate champion title over the same distance. Does this mean that he is now eyeing the longer distances, moving up from the 1500 m? Josh Kerr, with 3:42.66, broke the mile record, which had stood for more than a quarter of a century (since El Guerrouj broke Morceli’s record with 3:43.13 in a fabulous race in which Ngeny was second with 3:43.40). Kristjan Ceh was undoubtedly the best discus thrower of the year, winning the European title and the Diamond League final (there was no discus in the Ultimate Championship programme this year). But what is more impressive is that he came within 10 cm of his Ramona-established personal best in Birmingham. (From what I remember, the Europeans in Birmingham were quite windy, but I doubt that the wind speed was anywhere near that of Ramona). Rumesh Pathirage is Sri Lankan, but he certainly partakes of the Indian passion for cricket that has recently given us a whole generation of javelin throwers. With 92.62 m, he is among the 10 best throwers of all time and, being just 23 years old, has a real margin for progression.

The list is already quite long, and there are names that have been left out. I wonder whether, in the future, it wouldn’t be better to give a discipline-by-discipline report of the year and simply present the names of the three best in the three specialties recently introduced by World Athletics: track, field and out of stadia. Speaking of which, here are my lists:

Track

Dos Santos, Kebinatshipi, Bednarek

Paulino, Jefferson-Wooden, Russell

(That was easy to guess, given what I wrote above).

Field

Duplantis, Tamberi, Tentoglou

Yan, (Rogers, Iapichino)

(For me, Yan is the best, and only reluctantly did I add the other two).

Out of stadia

Sawe, Kejelcha, Kiplimo

Assefa, Amebaw, Perez

(Amebaw distinguished herself both in and out of the stadium, and thus earned her place. As for Perez, as I have already said, she is the one race walker for whom I make an exception).

The Blog Is 13 Years Old

Last year, while commenting on the blog’s views, I wrote: “I cannot understand what is happening.” Before we go any further, take a look at the graphic below.

Last year, I also wrote: “I don’t have any explanation for the spikes in 2017 and 2019. The huge spike in 2025 appeared at the time of the World Championships, but I don’t think there was any real correlation.” What are those famous spikes in 2017 and 2019? Here is a graphic from 2020.

Now go back to the first graphic. The 2017 spike is only a tiny bump, while the twin peaks from 2019 cut a sorry figure in the 2026 graphic. And the “huge” spike of 2025? Well, it is there, but there is nothing huge about it when compared with the views in 2026. June alone brought more than 200k views, and when you look at the cumulative figures, the one-million mark was reached sometime around that month.

But let’s get serious: are those real views? Even the most optimistic estimates would not put the blog’s readership at more than a few thousand views per month, and I am being generous. No. What is happening is that all those large language models are scraping the web, trying to ingest everything they can find, and my blog is part of their fodder. So, if one day somebody decides to write an article with the help of Grok or any other LLM, the half-assed artificial-intelligence app will be able to produce some insipid text parroting my idiosyncrasies, trying to imitate the style of Rethinking Athletics.

The article with the highest number of views was, you guessed it, “The Javelin Controversy”, followed by “Pole Vault: Before and After” and “Before the Olympic Medals: The Olive Wreath”. Sadly, the one article I consider my best, “Eleven Wretched Women, or How Fake News Almost Killed Women’s Athletics”, has not yet reached a thousand views.

In case you were wondering whether the blog will continue, rest assured: it will. I cannot guarantee the publication frequency, but I have managed to maintain a regular rhythm of at least one article per month, often more, over the years. I hope that, at least for the next year, I will be able to keep it up.

Olympism: a bee in de Coubertin's bonnet (part 5 of "the real story of the Olympics")

De Coubertin visited Wenlock in October 1890. At that time, he was deeply interested in physical education, believing that its inclusion in the curriculum of French schools would contribute to France’s “grandeur”, both political and military. He had already been to England in the 1880s, but this visit to Dr. Brookes came after he had founded, in 1888, the Comité pour la Propagation des Exercises Physiques (also known as the Comité Jules Simon). It was his shared (with Brookes) enthusiasm for general education, physical training, and sport that prompted the journey, and once there, de Coubertin discovered the Olympic movement.

Brookes introduced him to the idea of an Olympic revival and told him about earlier efforts, his own Olympian festivals in Much Wenlock, as well as those held in Greece under Zappas’ patronage. By then, however, the Olympic movement in Greece was all but dead. The “Committee for the Olympics”, which administered Zappas’ legacy, was dominated by persons openly hostile to athletic competition. They had begun diverting the funds meant for the Games into industrial projects instead. As for Brookes’ festivals, they too were fading: the “amateur” victory of the elitist clubs had drained the movement’s vitality. Old and ailing, Brookes had already seen his appeal to Greece for an “International Olympic Movement” and an Olympian festival in Athens blocked by the anti-athletic clique. Yet, when de Coubertin arrived, he could not resist speaking of his cherished Olympic vision.

Back in Paris, de Coubertin behaved as though he had conceived a wholly new idea. During the annual meeting of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA) in November 1892, he proposed “the restoration of the Olympic Games”. He later claimed that his audience was baffled by the novelty of the suggestion, though in practice his speech received polite applause and little follow-up. Most sporting associations were absorbed in managing their everyday affairs. Yet de Coubertin persisted. The following year, he organized an International Athletic Congress to be held in Paris in June 1894.

By April, de Coubertin had barely advertised his congress, and almost no delegates had registered. David C. Young recounts what happened behind the scenes, altering the course of history: in early April, at the baron’s request, de Coubertin’s friend Charles Waldstein “laid the question before the Greek royal family”. Waldstein secured a long audience with Constantine, heir to the Greek throne. In mid-April, he wrote to de Coubertin that Prince Constantine would serve as an honorary member of the Paris Congress. This prompted de Coubertin to dispatch a flurry of invitations for the June event, alongside a request that delegates submit their views on amateurism and the Olympic revival in advance. When Brookes received his invitation, he replied by advocating Greece as the permanent Olympic site—though he allowed that rotations “in or near the Capitals of all nations might also suffice"—and contacted his old friend Charilaos Trikoupis, then prime minister of Greece.

It is striking that de Coubertin deemed it unwise to sideline Greece in his Olympic revival (his anti-hellenic feelings would surface later). And the efforts of his intermediaries, Waldstein and Brookes, bore fruit. Demetrios Vikelas, a Greek who had spent most of his adult life in England and France, had no prior involvement in athletics; but in early June 1894, while residing in Paris, he received a certificate naming him a member of the Panellinios Athletic Club. Soon after came a letter from a friend, urging him to represent the club at de Coubertin’s Congress (as Fokianos, in poor health and lacking foreign languages, could not attend). And at the Congress itself, “as if by previous agreement”, Vikelas was elected chairman of the sub-committee on the Olympic Games.

The common lore holds that Vikelas became the first president of the IOC when, all on his own (as he later claimed), he proposed on the Congress’s final day, June 23, that the Olympic Games begin in Athens, a motion approved by acclamation. In truth, the story unfolded quite differently. According to David C. Young, the Congress was a scripted drama, with delegates as unwitting actors. The minutes reveal that several days earlier, they had voted in favour of inaugural games in London, despite de Coubertin’s proposal for Athens. Curiously, Vikelas did not support the baron’s Athens motion on that first occasion. Later that day, de Coubertin sent a telegram to King George of Greece, who replied with thanks to the Congress and best wishes for the Olympic revival. The only logical explanation, for this exchange and Vikelas’s change of heart, is that de Coubertin and the Greek royal family had already agreed to hold the first modern Olympics in Athens before the Paris Congress convened.

All of a sudden, Vikelas shifted his stance. He attributed this to a discussion with an unnamed friend who “happened to pass through Paris on the evening of June 22”. Most probably, Vikelas—thrust onto the stage without a script—had been unaware of the prior arrangements until King George’s telegram arrived, clarifying his role. During the final plenary session on June 23, he delivered that stirring, patriotic plea on Greece’s behalf; the delegates voted unanimously for Athens, and the rest is history. Vikelas and de Coubertin now faced the task of organizing the Olympics—with less than two years to do so. But that is a story for the next post.