World Championships: Nicola Olyslagers (AUS) 2.00m World Indoor Championships: Nicola Olyslagers (AUS) 1.97m Diamond League: Nicola Olyslagers (AUS) 2.04m South American Championships: Hellen Tenorio (COL) 1.81m Asian Championships: Pooja Singh (IND) 1.89m NACAC Championships: Sanaa Barnes (USA) 1.91m
Season snapshot
Second, fifth, third and second read the results from Nicola Olyslagers in her previous outdoor global championship finals. In Tokyo after the season of her career, the 28-year-old secured her first outdoor world title. The first woman over two metres in the final before a half-hour rain delay, she also came the closest to a clearance of 2.02m which, it transpired, she didn’t need.
For the Australian, it was pretty much the prefect campaign. Things had begun brightly in Nanjing when she successfully defended her world indoor title with a clearance of 1.97m. But the question was if she could translate that to title-winning form outdoors. Victory in the Diamond League final of 2.04m, the highest by anyone in 2025, as well as the Tokyo gold, answered that quite comprehensively.
Poland’s Maria Zodzik needed a career best - her first time ever over the esteemed two-metre mark - to push Olyslagers to a further height in the World Championships final and she achieved it at the third and final time of asking after the lengthy delay as the heavens opened. For Angelina Topic, there was delight for daughter and father, Dragutin, who doubles up as her coach and was ninth in the same city at the 1991 World Championships.
Until 2025, Yaroslava Mahuchikh had been setting the benchmark for the high jump with the world title in Budapest followed by Olympic glory a year later and a world record in Paris of 2.10m. This year hasn’t quite gone to plan starting with a heel injury and not being quite able to match her histrionics of 2024.
World Championships: Hamish Kerr (NZL) 2.36m World Indoor Championships: Woo Sanghyeok (KOR) 2.31m Diamond League: Hamish Kerr (NZL) 2.32m South American Championships: Thiago Moura (BRA) 2.16m Asian Championships: Woo Sanghyeok (KOR) 2.29m NACAC Championships: Tyus Wilson (USA) 2.24m
Season snapshot
Is the high jump a battle of body or mind? Hamish Kerr clearly thought it was the latter as he tapped his temple vigorously after clearing the 2.36m that gave him the world’s best jump of the year at the clutch moment in Tokyo. Unlike compatriot Geordie Beamish in the steeplechase, Kerr was very much the event favourite going into it. Never before had the pair’s nation won two golds in one World Championships.
Up to that point of Kerr’s final leap, Woo Sanghyeok had hinted he was the best placed for the gold but came up just short with a best of 2.34m. His calf injury from earlier in the season appeared to be a thing of the past and the crowd lapped up his usual antics in the theatre of competition.
The South Korean had begun his season strongly by winning the World Indoor Championships for the second time, becoming only the third man in high jump history to pick up multiple titles in the event indoors. He joined esteemed company in Stefan Holm and Javier Sotomayor in doing so and edged out defending champion Kerr.
For Kerr, it was a rare defeat in China having won three Diamond League events in total, including the final. Woo was the next best-placed athlete on the Diamond League calendar with two wins of his own during the course of 2025.
Back to the World Championships, it always felt like it would be a battle of the top two between Kerr and Woo. In the fight for the final medal - the bronze - Jan Stefela of Czechia snuck it on count back over Ukraine’s Oleh Doroshchuk after both men cleared 2.31m.
World Championships: Katie Moon (USA) 4.90m World Indoor Championships: Marie-Julie Bonnin (FRA) 4.75m Diamond League: Katie Moon (USA) 4.82m South American Championships: Juliana Campos (BRA) 4.30m Asian Championships: Niu Chunge (CHN) 4.48m
Season snapshot
No athlete is the same, each one peaking at a different point. For Katie Moon, it wasn’t until into her 30s that the good times properly came in abundance with Olympic gold in 2021. Since then, she has backed that up with a hat-trick of world titles, the latest coming courtesy of a last attempt at 4.90m in the final in Tokyo. She emulated Yelena Isinbayeva as a three-time world champion in the process.
Once again, it was a head-to-head against her compatriot Sandi Morris. The 33-year-old, a year Moon’s junior, now has four silver medals to her name at the World Championships after once more being second best in a see-saw contest coming up just short with a best of 4.85m.
But age needn't be a barrier and she will be 35 at the next hosting of the World Championships. As if to highlight the fact, a 36-year-old Tina Sutej was the bronze medallist in Tokyo with her 4.80m clearance. For Sutej, it was a first outdoor global championships medal, having finished fourth at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships.
That one-two-three in Tokyo reflected the world rankings for the season although the biggest clearance of 2025 was reserved for USA's Amanda Moll in Indianapolis all the way back at the end of February with a 4.91m.
World Championships: Mondo Duplantis (SWE) 6.30m World Indoor Championships: Mondo Duplantis (SWE) 6.15m Diamond League: Mondo Duplantis (SWE) 6.00m South American Championships: Ricardo Montes de Oca (VEN) 5.40m Asian Championships: Ernest John Obiena (PHI) 5.77m
Season snapshot
Deep into a Monday night in Tokyo with every other event over, still 50,000 people stayed in their seats in the stadium in thrall to watch Mondo Duplantis as he set about trying to set the 14th world record of his remarkable career. As he did so with 6.30m, the place erupted, and he duly turned his attention to the lengthy quest to 6.40m in the immediate aftermath.
Like the assembled spectators, his rivals were equally enraptured. Renaud Lavillenie, Duplantis’ long-time idol, led the cheerleading with the Swede on the runway. It was an apt setting for Duplantis to shine having won Olympic gold in the same National Stadium in 2021 but without a crowd to cheer him along. The 28cm between his jumps at the respective events shows just how much he feeds off the crowd.
Only one other man made it over six metres in the final, Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis doing his best to keep the dominant force of athletics at least honest. Karalis, though, could only watch in awe as Duplantis raised the bar by a further 30cm above his mark.
One runs out of superlatives to describe an athlete who has now won 16 consecutive competitions and was last beaten more than two years ago. There are new targets, though, namely Sergey Bubka’s 17 world records as well as the World Ultimate Championship in Budapest in 2026.
World Championships: Tara Davis-Woodhall (USA) 7.13m World Indoor Championships: Claire Bryant (USA) 6.96m Diamond League: Larissa Iapichino (ITA) 6.93m South American Championships: Natalia Linares (COL) 6.81m Asian Championships: Reihaneh Mobini (IRN) 6.40m NACAC Championships: Alyssa Jones (USA) 6.74m
Season snapshot
Tara Davis-Woodhall promptly went viral at the 2024 Olympics when, after winning gold, she embraced her husband, the Paralympian, Hunter Woodhall, who told her, “Babe, you’re Olympic champion”. Well, babe is now the world champion too with a season’s best of 7.13m again with her delighted, supportive husband watching in the stands.
The US athlete has set the benchmark for her sport and last lost on the long jump runway at the World Championships in Budapest to Ivana Spanovic two years previously. Again, Davis-Woodhall was a class apart in Tokyo as the only woman beyond seven metres, although Malaika Mihambo was only one centimetre off with her 6.99m to take the silver in the venue where she had been crowned Olympic champion four years previously.
Colombia’s Natalia Linares, a world U20 silver medallist previously, lived up to her junior billing for a first senior medal at a global championship after a fourth-round PB of 6.92m. After the medal, she readily admitted she had been inspired by two-time world triple jump champion and compatriot Caterine Ibarguen, her idol.
The shock of the championships was that Italian Larissa Iapichino failed to qualify for the final as one of the few seven-metre jumpers in the world in 2025 and one of the clear medal contenders in Tokyo. She was also a winner of the Diamond League final in Zurich with a 6.93m.
The surprise of the season was arguably Claire Bryant back in March where, on her international debut, her leap of 6.96m won her the world indoor title in Nanjing, China. It was comfortably her career best by eight centimetres. Silver and bronze went to Annik Kälin of Switzerland and Spain’s Fatima Diame.
World Championships: Mattia Furlani (ITA) 8.39m World Indoor Championships: Mattia Furlani (ITA) 8.30m Diamond League: Simon Ehammer (SUI) 8.32m South American Championships: Emiliano Lasa (URU) 7.97m Asian Championships: Shu Heng (CHN) 8.22m NACAC Championships: Nikaoli Williams (JAM) 8.16m
Season snapshot
As a precocious teenage talent, Mattia Furlani had announced himself to the world with medals at the World Indoor Championships and the Olympic Games in 2024. A year on, it was all about gold, most notably a leap of 8.39m seeing him crowned world champion in Tokyo. He left it until the fifth round for the effort that would earn him the title.
Tajay Gayle had previously set the benchmark by matching his season’s best of 8.34m and it looked like it might be enough for him to earn gold, only for Furlani to save his best until the penultimate round. For Gayle, a world champion in 2019, it was his third time on the World Championship podium.
It proved a thrilling end to the men’s event with just nine centimetres separating the top four. China’s Shi Yuhao had been ranked 30th in the world going into the contest but improved on his season’s best by a whopping 12cm to take the bronze, not bad for an athlete who toyed with retiring after a serious injury back in 2018.
Simon Ehammer of Switzerland missed out on bronze by just three centimetres but could take some solace from winning the Diamond League final and ending the season ranked only behind Furlani. So wide open was the Diamond League this season in the long jump that there were six different winners in the year’s six events on the calendar.
World Championships: Leyanis Perez Hernandez (CUB) 14.94m World Indoor Championships: Leyanis Perez Hernandez (CUB) 14.93m Diamond League: Leyanis Perez Hernandez (CUB) 14.91m South American Championships: Gabriele dos Santos (BRA) 13.96m Asian Championships: Li Yi (CHN) 13.80m NACAC Championships: Shanieka Ricketts (JAM) 14.23m
Season snapshot
Tokyo saw a match-up between the best of 2025 against the best of all time. In the end, Yulimar Rojas’ hopes of adding a fifth world title after a two-year absence came up just short and the Venezuelan had to make do with the bronze medal. She showed little signs of the achilles injury which had hampered her previously, although had heavy strapping on her right knee.
There could be no argument about the deserving champion as Cuba’s Leyanis Perez Hernandez twice recorded the winning distance of 14.94m in the six rounds of jumping. And Perez Hernandez was quick to point out the competition had been that much more meaningful by being up against Rojas.
In what many saw as a head-to-head between Perez Hernandez and Rojas, Thea LaFond almost caused a mighty upset for Dominica with her final jump of the competition. For a moment, the crowd were on tenterhooks for the measurement which came five centimetres shy of the newly crowned champion.
Perez Hernandez proved a model of consistency all season long. In March, she won the world indoor title with a best of 14.93m and later won the Diamond League final with 14.91m. In all, the 23-year-old won three of the five Diamond League events on the calendar. Her 2025 was some response to finishing fifth at the Olympics in Paris the previous year.
World Championships: Pedro Pichardo (POR) 17.91m World Indoor Championships: Andy Diaz Hernandez (ITA) 17.80m Diamond League: Andy Diaz Hernandez (ITA) 17.56m South American Championships: Almir Dos Santos (BRA) 16.68m Asian Championships: Zhu Yaming (CHN) 17.06m NACAC Championships: Kaiwan Culmer (BAH) 16.56m
Season snapshot
The ultimate showman on the biggest stage of 2025, Pedro Pichardo left it late at the World Championships in Tokyo but he unleashed an effort of 17.91m, the farthest by anyone all season, with the very last jump of the competition to reclaim the world title.
Pichardo had been the long-time leader with a 17.55m in what proved a thrilling denouement only for Italy’s Andrea Dallavalle to pull out his best of the night, a 17.64m, and celebrate as though the gold was his, only to be pushed back into the silver-medal spot a moment later.
It proved a final to forget for another Italian, Andy Diaz Hernandez, who ended up in sixth place with 17.19m, some way shy of what he had achieved earlier in the season. He had set a world lead 17.80m in winning the World Indoors in Nanjing before Portugal’s Pichardo eclipsed that number.
Diaz Hernandez had also produced the best leap of the entire Diamond League season with a 17.56m to win the Diamond League final. But a mention for Jamaica’s Jordan Scott, who won three of the five Diamond Leagues with victories in Xiamen, Oslo and Paris.
Christel Saneh)
