World Championships: Cordell Tinch (USA) 12.99 World Indoor Championships (60m hurdles): Grant Holloway (USA) 7.42 Wanda Diamond League: Cordell Tinch (USA) 12.92 South American Championships: Martín Sáenz de Santa María (CHI) 13.51 Asian Championships: Rachid Muratake (JPN) 13.22 NACAC Championships: Demario Prince (JAM) 13.35
Season snapshot
It was back in 2017 that Grant Holloway last failed to win a world title in the 110m hurdles. Ahead of the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, his build-up had been far from perfect, leaving him some way down the world order of times pre-championships. And yet there was still shock when the US athlete failed to make it into the final.
Despite Holloway’s absence, Cordell Tinch took great pride in keeping the title within United States borders as he won gold. In doing so, he secured a 13th USA gold in the discipline from 20 editions of the World Championships. A college football scholarship student, he switched to athletics and shone across the jump events before finding his calling in the hurdles. In the world final, he was the only man to dip under the 13-second barrier.
Orlando Bennett was a surprise silver medallist for Jamaica, although not in the eyes of the 26-year-old who insisted he had never doubted his credentials as a medallist on the global stage. His time of 13.08 behind Tinch was a career best, as was the 13.12 by Tyler Mason, who added another medal for the black, green and gold of Jamaica with bronze.
The outdoor season very much belonged to Tinch, who proved a class apart in also winning the Diamond League final in Zurich. Not bad for an athlete who fell out of a love with sport and took a two-year hiatus from it, working all manner of odd jobs from mobile-phone salesman to working in a toilet paper factory in a slow but steady rise to the top which finally paid off with him cleaning up in 2025.
The world-leading 12.87 that Tinch clocked in Shaoxing/Keqiao moved him to joint fourth on the world all-time list. Two other athletes joined him in dipping under 13 seconds in 2025 – Rachid Muratake, who improved the Japanese record to 12.92, and Just Kwaou-Mathey with 12.99.
While there was disappointment for Tinch’s compatriot Holloway in failing to make it to the world final of the 110m hurdles, over the 60m distance indoors in Nanjing he still made it world title No.3. He won in 7.42, extending his astonishing indoor hurdles winning streak to 11 years.
World Championships: Ditaji Kambundji (SUI) 12.24 World Indoor Championships (60m hurdles): Devynne Charlton (BAH) 7.72 Wanda Diamond League: Ackera Nugent (JAM) 12.30 South American Championships: Ketiley Batista (BRA) 13.22 Asian Championships: Jyothi Yarraji (IND) 12.96 NACAC Championships: Amoi Brown (JAM) 12.83
Season snapshot
Ditaji Kambundji wasn’t even the biggest athletics name in her family going into the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 and yet she smashed the Swiss record to beat a host of rivals, many of them more heavily fancied to take home the gold. Her run-of-a-lifetime 12.24 was just shy of Yordanka Donkova’s 27-year-old European record.
Grace Stark ended the year ranked No.1 in the world and managed to upstage her compatriot, the Olympic champion and fastest woman in 2025 Masai Russell, to take bronze in Japan as the highest-placed United States athlete.
The world all-time list was rewritten as Russell became the second-fastest 100m hurdler in history with 12.17, Tia Jones moved to No.3 with 12.19, Stark to joint No.5 with 12.21 and Tonea Marshall and Kambundji to joint No.7 with 12.24.
Returning to Tokyo, where she missed out on a medal at the Olympics by just five tenths of a second, world record-holder Tobi Amusan made amends of sorts with silver behind Kambundji, crediting new coach Glen Mills, the architect of Usain Bolt’s past sprint dominance.
Prior to the World Athletics Indoor Championships Nanjing 25, the record for the number of women to have broken 7.80 in a single 60m hurdles race was three. In China, six athletes managed to achieve that feat: Devynne Charlton taking gold ahead of Kambundji and Ackera Nugent. For Charlton, it proved a successful defence of her world title.
In total, 12 sub-12.30 100m hurdles performances were achieved by seven women throughout the season.
World Championships: Rai Benjamin (USA) 46.52 Wanda Diamond League: Karsten Warholm (NOR) 46.70 South American Championships: Francisco Guilherme dos Reis Viana (BRA) 50.03 Asian Championships: Abderrahman Samba (QAT) 48.00 NACAC Championships: CJ Allen (USA) 48.22
Season snapshot
One minute, the World Championships gold medal was Rai Benjamin’s, then a minute later it was not as the US athlete hit his final hurdle and left the neighbouring one belonging to Ezekiel Nathaniel slightly askew. However, Benjamin’s dethroning as world champion lasted just 10 minutes when a counter appeal by United States officials proved successful. After a nervy wait, the gold was his once more after running a time of 46.52.
Behind him, there was no such uncertainty about the remaining two medallists. The 2022 world champion Alison dos Santos clocked 46.84 for the silver and Abderrahman Samba got bronze in 47.06, matching the medal he won at his home World Championships in Doha six years earlier.
But the biggest surprise was the man absent from the podium, world record-holder Karsten Warholm. The Diamond League champion, he was also the quickest man in the world in 2025 with the 46.28 set in Chorzow – the third-fastest time in history – just a few weeks earlier. But he seemed out of sorts from the word go in Tokyo and could only manage third in his heat. His time of 47.58 for fifth in the final was way off what he had produced all season. He later called the race “a disaster”.
Six other men aside from the eventual medallists and Warholm dipped under the 48-second mark in the lead-in to Tokyo. They included Nathaniel with 47.31, which he lowered to a 47.11 Nigerian record for fourth place in Tokyo, and Caleb Dean and Chris Robinson, both 47.76 runners.
World Championships: Femke Bol (NED) 51.54 Wanda Diamond League: Femke Bol (NED) 52.18 South American Championships: Gianna Woodruff (PAN) 56.57 Asian Championships: Mo Jiadie (CHN) 55.31 NACAC Championships: Tia-Adana Belle (BAR) 54.67
Season snapshot
Femke Bol capped an unbeaten season by securing victory in the 400m hurdles at the World Championships in Tokyo by more than half a second, peaking with a world lead at just the right moment. Bol’s 51.54 was her quickest time for more than a year.
The gold proved a successful defence of the world title won in Budapest two years previously. With world record-holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone focusing on the 400m flat, Bol has been truly dominant in 2025 with victories in Rabat, Hengelo, Stockholm, Monaco, London, Budapest, Silesia and the Diamond League final in Zurich.
Jasmine Jones managed to clock a personal best in the Paris Olympic final and once again in the Tokyo final she eclipsed that. Her 52.08 this time ensured a medal, the silver behind Bol, moments after training partner Rai Benjamin’s epic run over the same distance in the men’s final. That final also marked a last-ever race before retirement for Jones’ compatriot Dalilah Muhammad, the former world record-holder who finished outside the medals this time.
Emma Zapletalova might be one of the rising stars of the event, but she faced the tough prospect of starting the final on the inside lane. Despite that, she timed her finish to perfect to take 0.18 seconds off her personal best with a Slovak Republic record of 53.00 to clinch bronze.
Jones and Savannah Sutherland both moved into the world all-time top 10, at No.5 and No.9, respectively.
World Championships: Geordie Beamish (NZL) 8:33.88 Wanda Diamond League: Frederik Ruppert (GER) 8:09.02 South American Championships: Carlos San Martin (COL) 8:37.79 Asian Championships: Avinash Sable (IND) 8:20.92 NACAC Championships: Daniel Michalski (USA) 8:14.07
Season snapshot
Geordie Beamish’s look of astonishment as he crossed the line in first place in Tokyo summed up the mood of everyone else in attendance. As good as the New Zealander is, he was very few people’s pick for the world title, the first ever by a male athlete from his country in the history of the World Championships. His final 30-metre charge to the gold will live long in the memory and it came just two days after a nasty fall in his heat.
The final wasn’t particularly quick, more than half a minute slower than Soufiane El Bakkali’s best this season of 8:00.70, and the Moroccan was the favourite going into the final having been world champion in 2022 and 2023 and targeting a hat-trick of titles. He looked visibly disappointed as he crossed the line just seven hundredths of a second behind the new world champion.
At 17 years old, the world is only just beginning to see the talent of Kenyan Edmund Serem, with the teenager taking the bronze in Tokyo half a second back from El Bakkali. In the wake of Tokyo, he was awarded the World Athletics Rising Star award in Monaco. There’s plenty more to come in 2026 and beyond.
During the course of the Diamond League season, there were six different winners overall: Ethiopian trio Samuel Firewu, Abrham Sime and Lamecha Girma; Germany’s Karl Bebendorf; Ruben Querinjean of Luxembourg; El Bakkali, who was the only two-time winner on the calendar; and Bebendorf’s compatriot Frederik Ruppert, who won the final in Zurich.
Ruppert also set a national record of 8:01.49, placing him second on the season top list to El Bakkali, while Ryuji Miura achieved a Japanese record of 8:03.43 to end the year as third-fastest in the world.
World Championships: Faith Cherotich (KEN) 8:51.59 Wanda Diamond League: Faith Cherotich (KEN) 8:57.24 South American Championships: Tatiane Raquel da Silva (BRA) 9:40.07 Asian Championships: Norah Jeruto (KAZ) 9:10.46 NACAC Championships: Krissy Gear (USA) 9:35.27
Season snapshot
At 21 years of age, Faith Cherotich had already shown her athletics credentials with Diamond League glory in 2024, which she successfully defended a year on. But 2025 proved the year she picked up her first senior global title in a major championship and in some style, with a championship record of 8:51.59 that was almost five seconds clear of her closest challenger.
Winfred Yavi can take some solace from having finished the year as the fastest woman in the world, her run of 8:45.25 having comfortably beaten Cherotich in their thrilling clash in Eugene back in July. But when it came to Tokyo, the world and Olympic champion had to make do with the silver medal.
The end-of-year world rankings played out exactly as the World Championships final did, with Sembo Almayew in third spot in both. Like Cherotich, Almayew has been a rising steeplechase star and the 20-year-old overcame searing pain in her legs down the home straight to win bronze in Tokyo.
Cherotich was the dominant force across the Diamond League, winning four of the six events: in Doha, Oslo, Paris and Zurich. Yavi, though, won arguably the race of the season in the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene with a meeting record and a time that would prove the best of the year. The top five dipped under nine minutes and there were five personal bests in all in the field.
A total of six women went sub-9:00 in 2025, one more than in 2024.
