The best of the best of 2025 (according to Athletics Podium)

On several occasions I mentioned in this blog the excellent site "Athletics Podium". It is run by the turkish sports journalist S.F. Erbay, accompanied by a team contributing editors. I cannot think of any better athletics-oriented site on the web. My turkish neighbours are really the best and, on several occasions, they have pleasantly surprised me with the originality of their articles. (I must confess that quite often I am jealous when I compare the quality of their site to my blog, but, I console myself with the thought that I am a one-man operation).

At the end of the year they published their year's best athletes list and I must say that I found it original to the point that I had to share it with you. 

They did not follow the World Athletics classification of track, field and out-of-stadium, neither one like mine that lists, roughly, the ten best of each sex. The Athletics Podium people decided to list the best by continent, with America split, as usual to South America and NACAC (which stands for North America, Central America and the Caribbeans). They ended up with the following lists

WOMEN

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden (NACAC) and World
Maria Perez (EUR)
Beatrice Chebet(AFR)
Salwa Eid Naser (ASI)
Natalia Linares (S.AM)
Nicola Olyslagers (OCE)

MEN

Armand Duplantis(EUR) and World
Busang Kebinatshipi (AFR)
Sang-Hyeok Woo (ASI)
Caio Bonfim (S.AM)
Geordie Beamish (OCE)
Ethan Katzberg (NACAC)

I find the list interesting but also somewhat surprising. M. Jefferson-Wooden best of the World?  I would put at least three athletes ahead of her. At least B. Chebet gets plaudits for Africa, but this left no place for F. Kipyegon. (Sometimes choices are hard). N. Linares instead of J. Angulo, M. Perez instead of F. Bol or D. Kambundji would have also been my choices but, frankly, how can one ignore S. McLaughlin?   On the men's side I was happy to see that B. Kebinatshipi did get a mention (although that was at the expense of E. Wanyonyi).

The "Rising Stars" are called "Prospects" by the Athletics Podium people. And out of the 12 names I had to look up almost half of them.

Europe: Kelly-Ann Douala Edimo and Jarno van Daalen 
Africa: Prestina Ochonogor and Justice Oratile 
Asia: Puripol Boonson and Yan Ziyi 
NACAC: Liranyi Alonso and Kamari Kennedy 
South America: Maria Maturana and Ricardo Montes de Oca 
Oceania: Reki Selita Roberts and Gout Gout 

As you may have noticed I am not very good when it comes to the Rising Stars list (although I feel that I have made some progress these last years). So, I don't have major objections to the list above. But, still, I think that if there is one young European athlete who merits the distinction that's Hubert Trościanka. (But then, I am a combined event aficionado, so this explains that). 

I mentioned F. Kipyegon, S. McLaughlin and E. Wanyonyi as being left on the shelf. Well, apart from F. Kipyegon, the other two got a mention in the "Top Performances" list. I reproduce it below but I don't know if the order means something.

MEN

1) Armand Duplantis - 6.30m (PV)
2) Emmanuel Wanyonyi - 1:41.86 (800 m)
3) Mykolas Alekna - 75.56m (DT)
4) Rai Benjamin - 46.52 (400 m H)
5) Jacob Kiplimo - 56:42 (Half Marathon)

WOMEN

1) Beatrice Chebet - 13:58.06 (5000 m)
2) Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone - 47.78 (400 m)
3) Anna Hall - 7032 pts (Heptathlon)
4) Ditaji Kambundji - 12.24 (100 m H)
5) Valarie Allman - 73.52m (DT)

It is my feeling that F. Kipyegon's 1500 m 3:48.68 World Record (and her 3000 m 8:07.04 one) should have secured her a place in the Top Performances list. But where I strongly disagree with the AP list is with Rai Benjamin 46.52 s performance trumping the 46.28 of K. Warholm. We are talking performance here and world champion or not, Benjamin does not have the best performance of the year. At least I console myself seeing two throwers and one combined-event athlete included in the top-5 list, as well as J. Kiplimo who was totally ignored by World Athletics in their out-of-stadium choices.

Although I do not agree with all the Athletics Podium choices, I find their approach most interesting and very well researched. But, of course, this is not astonishing: as I said already, they are the best in what they do. So, if you haven't already done so, bookmark their site and think about visiting it regularly.