The World Athletics Athlete of the Year nominees

Since 2023 World Athletics has changed their year's best athlete classification introducing separate lists for track, field and road (what they call "out of stadium"). And last year they went back and introduced also an overall year's best. This year they kept the three specialties classification, but the nominees' list was globally parred down from 6+6 ro 5+5. This lead to a lopsided list in the case of men's field list with four jumpers and just one thrower. (But more on this later).

Here is the official list of nominees for 2025:

Track

Femke Bol
Beatrice Chebet
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden
Faith Kipyegon
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

Rai Benjamin
Jimmy Gressier
Noah Lyles
Cordell Tinch,
Emmanuel Wanyonyi

All female champions figure in my list. In the case of men I haven't included Benjamin (but his name would have been the next I would have included) and Lyles (of whom I don't appreciate the attitude).

Field 

Valarie Allman
Tara Davis-Woodhall
Anna Hall
Nicola Olyslagers
Camryn Rogers

Mondo Duplantis
Mattia Furlani
Ethan Katzberg
Hamish Kerr
Pedro Pichardo

Again all women were part of my list. In the case of men I did not include Furlani (although he is a great athlete I don't think he was dominating). For Kerr and Pichardo, see my remark on Lyles.

There is a blatant absence for this list, that of R. Crouser. He is the athlete who dominates the men's shot put for the last five years (at least). His come-back from injury to win the world title was a unique feat. Leaving him out of the nominees is, to say the least, unfair. He should have been included in the nominees list (to the detriment of one of the jumpers).

Out of Stadium

Tigst Assefa
Sifan Hassan
Peres Jepchirchir
Agnes Ngetich
Maria Perez

Caio Bonfim
Evan Dunfee
Yomif Kejelcha
Sabastian Sawe
Alphonce Simbu

Here I must admit that I have a weakness. I don't follow the "out of stadium" events closely enough so as to have a clear view of what is happening. Only P. Jepchirchir is mentioned in my year's best list (and S. Sawe gets a mention just to fill a gap).

Once World Athletics publishes the shortlist of selected athletes I will either update this list or, if it is justified, write a short article with my comments on their choices.