25 Best and Most Famous Track and Field Athletes of All Time

Our ranking of the 25 best track and field athletes of all time, led by Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens, with medals and records.

Each profile lists the athlete’s events, country, birth date, career span and the titles that matter, followed by what made them stand out. Sprinters, distance runners, jumpers, throwers and decathletes share one list, and men and women are ranked together. Below the ranking you will find the best athlete in each event group, the world records our athletes still hold and the names that just missed the cut.

How We Ranked the Track and Field Athletes

• Olympic and world titles: gold medals at the Olympics and the World Championships carry the most weight.
• World records: how many records an athlete set, how far they moved the mark and how long it stood.
• Dominance: winning streaks and the years an athlete stayed unbeaten in their event.
• Range and era: success across several events, and what an athlete achieved against the fields of their time.

Comparing a sprinter with a pole vaulter or a marathon runner is never exact, so we look at how far each athlete stood above the rest of their own event. Athletes before 1983 had no World Championships, and boycotts and wars cost some of them Olympic chances. The order is our own judgment, not an official one.

The 25 Best Track and Field Athletes at a Glance

#	Athlete	Events	Career
1	Usain Bolt	100 m, 200 m, 4 x 100 m relay	2002 to 2017
2	Carl Lewis	100 m, 200 m, long jump, 4 x 100 m relay	1979 to 1997
3	Jesse Owens	100 m, 200 m, long jump, 4 x 100 m relay	1935 to 1936
4	Paavo Nurmi	1500 m to 10,000 m, cross country	1920 to 1932
5	Armand Duplantis	Pole vault	since 2018
6	Michael Johnson	200 m, 400 m	1990 to 2000
7	Jackie Joyner-Kersee	Heptathlon, long jump	1984 to 1998
8	Sergey Bubka	Pole vault	1981 to 2001
9	Edwin Moses	400 m hurdles	1976 to 1988
10	Eliud Kipchoge	Marathon, 5000 m	since 2002
11	Allyson Felix	200 m, 400 m, relays	2003 to 2022
12	Emil Zátopek	5000 m, 10,000 m, marathon	1946 to 1957
13	Haile Gebrselassie	5000 m, 10,000 m, marathon	1992 to 2015
14	Kenenisa Bekele	5000 m, 10,000 m, cross country, marathon	since 2001
15	Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce	100 m, 200 m, 4 x 100 m relay	2007 to 2025
16	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	400 m hurdles, 400 m	since 2016
17	Faith Kipyegon	1500 m, mile, 5000 m	since 2011
18	Fanny Blankers-Koen	Sprints, hurdles, jumps, pentathlon	1935 to 1955
19	Mo Farah	5000 m, 10,000 m	1996 to 2023
20	Florence Griffith Joyner	100 m, 200 m, relays	1980 to 1989
21	Hicham El Guerrouj	1500 m, mile, 5000 m	1992 to 2004
22	Al Oerter	Discus throw	1956 to 1968
23	Daley Thompson	Decathlon	1976 to 1992
24	Yelena Isinbayeva	Pole vault	1998 to 2016
25	Jan Železný	Javelin throw	1988 to 2006

#1 Usain Bolt

• 🏃 Events: 100 m, 200 m, 4 x 100 m relay
• 🎂 Born: August 21, 1986, in Sherwood Content, Jamaica
• 🌍 Country: Jamaica
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 8 Olympic golds, 11 world titles, world records in the 100 m (9.58), 200 m (19.19) and 4 x 100 m relay (36.84)

Bolt is the only sprinter to win both the 100 m and the 200 m at three straight Olympics, in 2008, 2012 and 2016. At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin he ran 9.58 in the 100 m and 19.19 in the 200 m, and both world records still stand. He also anchored Jamaica to the 4 x 100 m world record of 36.84 in London in 2012.

He won 11 world titles, the most of any male athlete at the World Championships. One of his nine Olympic golds, the 2008 relay, was taken away in 2017 after teammate Nesta Carter failed a retest. His one big miss came at the 2011 World Championships, where a false start knocked him out of the 100 m final. He retired after the 2017 World Championships.

#2 Carl Lewis

• 🏃 Events: 100 m, 200 m, long jump, 4 x 100 m relay
• 🎂 Born: July 1, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 9 Olympic golds and 1 silver, 8 world titles, Olympic long jump champion 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996

Lewis won nine Olympic gold medals between 1984 and 1996, four of them in the long jump. At the 1984 Los Angeles Games he won the 100 m, 200 m, long jump and 4 x 100 m relay, matching Jesse Owens’ four golds from 1936. Only he and Al Oerter have won the same individual athletics event at four straight Olympics.

He also won eight world titles and ten World Championships medals in all. The Dallas Cowboys drafted him in 1984 even though he never played football. He later became head track coach at the University of Houston.

#3 Jesse Owens

• 🏃 Events: 100 m, 200 m, long jump, 4 x 100 m relay
• 🎂 Born: September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama, United States (died March 31, 1980)
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 4 Olympic golds in 1936 (100 m, 200 m, long jump, 4 x 100 m relay), 8 NCAA titles, long jump world record of 8.13 m (1935)

Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, in the 100 m, the 200 m, the long jump and the 4 x 100 m relay. His wins in front of the Nazi leadership made him one of the most famous athletes of the century.

A year earlier, at the 1935 Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, he set five world records and tied a sixth in less than an hour. His long jump of 8.13 m from that day stood as the world record for 25 years. Running for Ohio State, he won eight NCAA titles, four in 1935 and four in 1936.

#4 Paavo Nurmi

• 🏃 Events: 1500 m to 10,000 m, cross country
• 🎂 Born: June 13, 1897, in Turku, Finland (died October 2, 1973)
• 🌍 Country: Finland
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 9 Olympic golds and 3 silvers, 22 official world records from 1500 m to 20 km, unbeaten in 121 races at 800 m and up

Nurmi won nine Olympic gold medals and three silvers in 12 events at the Games of 1920, 1924 and 1928. In Paris in 1924 he won five golds, and the 1500 m and 5000 m finals were held less than an hour apart. He set 22 official world records at distances from 1500 m to 20 km.

The “Flying Finn” went unbeaten in 121 races at 800 m and up and dominated distance running in the 1920s. He was barred from the 1932 Olympics in a dispute over his amateur status, which ended his career.

#5 Armand Duplantis

• 🏃 Events: Pole vault
• 🎂 Born: November 10, 1999, in Lafayette, Louisiana, United States
• 🌍 Country: Sweden
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic champion 2020 and 2024, world champion 2022, 2023 and 2025, world indoor champion 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026, 15 world records, current record 6.31 m

Duplantis has raised the pole vault world record 15 times, most recently to 6.31 m in Uppsala on March 12, 2026. He has won two Olympic titles, three outdoor world titles and four world indoor titles.

He was born and raised in Louisiana but competes for Sweden, his mother’s home country. His father Greg was a pole vaulter who cleared 5.80 m, and his mother was a heptathlete. As of 2026 he is still competing and won the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September.

#6 Michael Johnson

• 🏃 Events: 200 m, 400 m
• 🎂 Born: September 13, 1967, in Dallas, Texas, United States
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 4 Olympic golds, 8 world titles, 200 m and 400 m double at the 1996 Olympics

Johnson is the only man to win both the 200 m and the 400 m at the same Olympics, which he did in Atlanta in 1996. His 19.32 in that 200 m final broke the world record by more than three tenths of a second. He raced in gold spikes and with an upright, short-stepping style.

In 2000 he became the only man to defend the Olympic 400 m title. His 43.18 from 1999 is still the American record. In 2008 he gave back his 2000 relay gold after teammate Antonio Pettigrew admitted to doping.

#7 Jackie Joyner-Kersee

• 🏃 Events: Heptathlon, long jump
• 🎂 Born: March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois, United States
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 3 Olympic golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze, 4 world titles, heptathlon world record of 7,291 points

Joyner-Kersee won the Olympic heptathlon in 1988 and 1992 and the long jump in 1988, and she won medals at four Olympics in all. Her 7,291 points at the 1988 Seoul Games is still the heptathlon world record. She also won four world titles, two in the heptathlon and two in the long jump.

She competed for most of her career with severe asthma. At UCLA she also started at forward for the women’s basketball team, and she later played professional basketball. She married her coach Bob Kersee in 1986, and her brother Al Joyner was married to Florence Griffith Joyner.

#8 Sergey Bubka

• 🏃 Events: Pole vault
• 🎂 Born: December 4, 1963, in Luhansk, Soviet Union (now Ukraine)
• 🌍 Country: Soviet Union, Ukraine
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic champion 1988, 6 straight world titles, 4 world indoor titles, 35 world records (17 outdoor, 18 indoor)

Bubka set 35 world records, 17 outdoors and 18 indoors, and was the first man to clear 6.00 m and 6.10 m. His indoor record of 6.15 m lasted from 1993 to 2014, and his outdoor 6.14 m stood from 1994 to 2020. Armand Duplantis finally beat the outdoor mark in Rome in 2020.

He won six straight world titles, from the first World Championships in 1983 to 1997, a record for any event. His only Olympic title came in Seoul in 1988. He competed first for the Soviet Union and then for Ukraine.

#9 Edwin Moses

• 🏃 Events: 400 m hurdles
• 🎂 Born: August 31, 1955, in Dayton, Ohio, United States
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic champion 1976 and 1984, world champion 1983 and 1987, 107 straight final wins, 4 world records

Moses won 107 consecutive finals and 122 consecutive races in the 400 m hurdles between 1977 and 1987. The streak began after a loss to Harald Schmid in August 1977 and ended when Danny Harris beat him in Madrid in June 1987. He set the world record four times.

He won Olympic gold in 1976 and 1984 and would likely have won in 1980, but the United States boycotted the Moscow Games. He took 13 steps between hurdles while his rivals usually needed more. He also helped create random out-of-competition drug testing in track and field.

#10 Eliud Kipchoge

• 🏃 Events: Marathon, 5000 m
• 🎂 Born: November 5, 1984, in Kapsisiywa, Kenya
• 🌍 Country: Kenya
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic marathon champion 2016 and 2020, world 5000 m champion 2003, marathon world record of 2:01:09 (2022), record 5 Berlin and 4 London Marathon wins

Kipchoge won the Olympic marathon in 2016 and 2020 and held the world record from 2018 to 2023, lowering it to 2:01:09 in Berlin in 2022. He won the Berlin Marathon a record five times and London a record four times. In Vienna in 2019 he ran the marathon distance in 1:59:40, in a special event that did not count as a record.

He started on the track and won the world 5000 m title in 2003 at 18, beating Hicham El Guerrouj. He dropped out of the 2024 Olympic marathon in Paris. As of 2026 he is still running and completed all six major marathons with New York in 2025.

#11 Allyson Felix

• 🏃 Events: 200 m, 400 m, relays
• 🎂 Born: November 18, 1985, in Los Angeles, California, United States
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 11 Olympic medals (7 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze), record 20 World Championships medals, Olympic 200 m champion 2012

Felix won 11 Olympic medals, the most of any woman in Olympic track and field, and a record 20 medals at the World Championships. Seven of her Olympic medals are gold, including the 200 m in London in 2012. She won her first, a 200 m silver, in Athens in 2004 at 18.

After the birth of her daughter she pushed Nike for maternity protections, and she later founded her own shoe brand, Saysh. She retired in 2022. In 2026 she announced a comeback aimed at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

#12 Emil Zátopek

• 🏃 Events: 5000 m, 10,000 m, marathon
• 🎂 Born: September 19, 1922, in Kopřivnice, Czechoslovakia (died November 21, 2000)
• 🌍 Country: Czechoslovakia
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 4 Olympic golds and 1 silver, 5000 m, 10,000 m and marathon treble at the 1952 Olympics

At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Zátopek won the 5000 m, the 10,000 m and the marathon, and the marathon was the first he had ever run. Four years earlier in London he had won the 10,000 m and taken silver in the 5000 m. In 1954 he became the first man to run 10,000 m in under 29 minutes.

He was known for hard interval training and a pained running style. His wife Dana won Olympic javelin gold in 1952, and the two were born on the same day. After he backed the Prague Spring in 1968, he was expelled from the army and the Communist Party.

#13 Haile Gebrselassie

• 🏃 Events: 5000 m, 10,000 m, marathon
• 🎂 Born: April 18, 1973, in Asella, Ethiopia
• 🌍 Country: Ethiopia
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic 10,000 m champion 1996 and 2000, 4 world 10,000 m titles, 4 world indoor titles, 27 world records, marathon world record of 2:03:59 (2008)

Gebrselassie won the Olympic 10,000 m in 1996 and 2000 and four straight world titles over the distance. He also won four world indoor titles and the 2001 World Half Marathon Championships. In all he set 27 world records.

He moved to the marathon in his thirties and won the Berlin Marathon four years in a row, from 2006 to 2009. His 2:03:59 there in 2008 was a world record. He retired in May 2015.

#14 Kenenisa Bekele

• 🏃 Events: 5000 m, 10,000 m, cross country, marathon
• 🎂 Born: June 13, 1982, near Bekoji, Ethiopia
• 🌍 Country: Ethiopia
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 3 Olympic golds and 1 silver, 4 world 10,000 m titles, 11 World Cross Country titles, 5000 m and 10,000 m world records from 2004 to 2020

Bekele held the 5000 m and 10,000 m world records from 2004 until 2020. He won the 10,000 m at the 2004 Olympics and both the 5000 m and the 10,000 m in Beijing in 2008. He also won four straight world titles at 10,000 m, from 2003 to 2009.

No runner has done better at the World Cross Country Championships, where he won six long course and five short course titles. In the marathon he ran 2:01:41 in Berlin in 2019, two seconds off the world record at the time. In 2024, at 41, he finished second in the London Marathon.

#15 Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

• 🏃 Events: 100 m, 200 m, 4 x 100 m relay
• 🎂 Born: December 27, 1986, in Kingston, Jamaica
• 🌍 Country: Jamaica
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic 100 m champion 2008 and 2012, 8 Olympic medals, 10 world titles including a record 5 in the 100 m

Fraser-Pryce won the Olympic 100 m in 2008 and 2012, and her first win made her the first Caribbean woman to take that title. She is the only sprinter to win five world titles in the 100 m, in 2009, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2022. In all she won ten world titles.

Her son Zyon was born in 2017, and two years later she won the world 100 m again. Her personal best of 10.60 came in Lausanne in 2021, when she was 34. She retired after the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo.

#16 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

• 🏃 Events: 400 m hurdles, 400 m
• 🎂 Born: August 7, 1999, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic 400 m hurdles champion 2020 and 2024, world champion 2022 (400 m hurdles) and 2025 (400 m), 400 m hurdles world record of 50.37

McLaughlin-Levrone was the first woman to run the 400 m hurdles in under 52 seconds and then under 51 seconds. Her world record of 50.37 came in the Olympic final in Paris on August 8, 2024, where she defended her title from Tokyo. She made her first Olympic team in 2016, before her senior year of high school.

In 2025 she switched to the flat 400 m and won the world title in 47.78, the second fastest time in history. She has also won several gold medals with the US 4 x 400 m relay.

#17 Faith Kipyegon

• 🏃 Events: 1500 m, mile, 5000 m
• 🎂 Born: January 10, 1994, in Nakuru, Kenya
• 🌍 Country: Kenya
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic 1500 m champion 2016, 2020 and 2024, world 1500 m champion 2017, 2022, 2023 and 2025, world 5000 m champion 2023, world records in the 1500 m and the mile

Kipyegon is the only woman to win the Olympic 1500 m three times, in 2016, 2020 and 2024. She holds the world records in the 1500 m, 3:48.68 from 2025, and the mile, 4:07.64 from 2023. She has won four world 1500 m titles and added the 5000 m in 2023.

She also held the 5000 m world record for a time. Her daughter was born in 2018, and she won her second Olympic title three years later. In 2025 she ran 4:06.42 in Nike’s Breaking4 exhibition, an attempt at the first sub four minute mile by a woman.

#18 Fanny Blankers-Koen

• 🏃 Events: Sprints, hurdles, jumps, pentathlon
• 🎂 Born: April 26, 1918, in Lage Vuursche, Netherlands (died January 25, 2004)
• 🌍 Country: Netherlands
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 4 Olympic golds in 1948, 5 European titles, 58 Dutch titles, 12 world records

At the 1948 Olympics in London, Blankers-Koen won four gold medals as a 30 year old mother of two, which earned her the nickname “the Flying Housewife”. She was the first woman to win four Olympic golds at one Games. She had first competed at the Olympics in 1936.

She also won five European titles and 58 Dutch championships, and she set or tied 12 world records, the last in 1951 at 33. In 1999 the IAAF named her female athlete of the century. She retired in 1955.

#19 Mo Farah

• 🏃 Events: 5000 m, 10,000 m
• 🎂 Born: March 23, 1983, in Gabiley, Somalia
• 🌍 Country: Great Britain
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 4 Olympic golds (5000 m and 10,000 m in 2012 and 2016), 6 world titles

Farah won the 5000 m and 10,000 m double at both the 2012 and the 2016 Olympics. He also won the same double at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships. He won six world titles in all.

He was born Hussein Abdi Kahin and was brought to the United Kingdom illegally at the age of nine, which he has since spoken about publicly. He was knighted in 2017 and was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year the same year. He retired in 2023.

#20 Florence Griffith Joyner

• 🏃 Events: 100 m, 200 m, relays
• 🎂 Born: December 21, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, United States (died September 21, 1998)
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: 3 Olympic golds and 2 silvers, world records in the 100 m (10.49) and 200 m (21.34)

Griffith Joyner set both of the sprint world records that still stand for women in 1988. She ran 10.49 in the 100 m at the US Olympic Trials and 21.34 in the 200 m at the Seoul Olympics. Many experts believe the wind gauge in her 10.49 race was faulty, but the record was never removed.

In Seoul she won the 100 m, the 200 m and the 4 x 100 m relay, plus a silver in the 4 x 400 m. Known as Flo-Jo, she was famous for her long painted nails and one-legged running suits. She retired in February 1989 and died in her sleep at 38 after an epileptic seizure.

#21 Hicham El Guerrouj

• 🏃 Events: 1500 m, mile, 5000 m
• 🎂 Born: September 14, 1974, in Berkane, Morocco
• 🌍 Country: Morocco
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic 1500 m and 5000 m champion 2004, 4 straight world 1500 m titles (1997 to 2003), 1500 m world record of 3:26.00

El Guerrouj ran 3:26.00 for the 1500 m in Rome in 1998, and that world record still stands. He won four straight world 1500 m titles from 1997 to 2003.

His Olympic luck was poor for years: he fell in the 1996 final and was beaten by Noah Ngeny in 2000. In Athens in 2004 he finally won the 1500 m and then the 5000 m, a double nobody had managed since Paavo Nurmi in 1924. He retired later that year.

#22 Al Oerter

• 🏃 Events: Discus throw
• 🎂 Born: September 19, 1936, in Astoria, New York, United States (died October 1, 2007)
• 🌍 Country: United States
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic discus champion 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968, first man over 200 feet in the discus

Oerter won the Olympic discus four times in a row, from 1956 to 1968, and was the first athlete to win the same individual event at four straight Games. He won the first one in Melbourne as an outsider, with a lifetime best. In Tokyo in 1964 he competed with torn cartilage in his ribs and still set an Olympic record.

In 1962 he became the first man to throw the discus more than 200 feet. He retired after the 1968 Games but tried a comeback and finished fourth at the 1980 US Olympic Trials.

#23 Daley Thompson

• 🏃 Events: Decathlon
• 🎂 Born: July 30, 1958, in Notting Hill, London, England
• 🌍 Country: Great Britain
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic decathlon champion 1980 and 1984, world champion 1983, 2 European and 3 Commonwealth titles, 4 world records

Thompson won the Olympic decathlon in 1980 and 1984 and broke the world record four times. In 1983 he won the first World Championships and became the first athlete to hold the Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth titles in one event at the same time. He went nine years without losing a decathlon.

He competed at his first Olympics in Montreal in 1976, at 18. His rivalry with West Germany’s Jürgen Hingsen defined the event in the 1980s. A hamstring injury forced him to retire in 1992.

#24 Yelena Isinbayeva

• 🏃 Events: Pole vault
• 🎂 Born: June 3, 1982, in Volgograd, Soviet Union (now Russia)
• 🌍 Country: Russia
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic champion 2004 and 2008, world champion 2005, 2007 and 2013, world record of 5.06 m

Isinbayeva was the first woman to clear 5 metres, in 2005, and her 5.06 m from Zürich in 2009 is still the world record. She won Olympic gold in 2004 and 2008, the second time with a world record.

She trained as a gymnast until she grew too tall and switched to the pole vault at 15. She won three world titles, the last in Moscow in 2013. She missed the 2016 Olympics because of the ban on Russian athletes and retired that August.

#25 Jan Železný

• 🏃 Events: Javelin throw
• 🎂 Born: June 16, 1966, in Mladá Boleslav, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
• 🌍 Country: Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic
• 🏆 Career Highlights: Olympic champion 1992, 1996 and 2000, Olympic silver 1988, world champion 1993, 1995 and 2001, javelin world record of 98.48 m

Železný won the Olympic javelin three times in a row, in 1992, 1996 and 2000, after a silver in 1988. He also won world titles in 1993, 1995 and 2001. He broke the world record four times.

His throw of 98.48 m from 1996 is still the world record. He took bronze at the 2006 European Championships at 40 and retired that September. He later coached Barbora Špotáková and Vítězslav Veselý.

Best Athlete in Each Event Group

If you want one name per event group, these are our picks from the ranking.

Events	Athlete	Why
Sprints	Usain Bolt	100 m and 200 m gold at three straight Olympics
400 m	Michael Johnson	Only man to defend the Olympic 400 m title
Hurdles	Edwin Moses	107 straight final wins over ten years
Middle distance	Paavo Nurmi	Nine Olympic golds and 22 world records
Long distance	Emil Zátopek	5000 m, 10,000 m and marathon gold at one Olympics
Marathon	Eliud Kipchoge	Two Olympic titles and a 2:01:09 world record
Jumps	Carl Lewis	Olympic long jump champion four times in a row
Pole vault	Armand Duplantis	15 world records and two Olympic titles
Throws	Al Oerter	Olympic discus champion four times in a row
Combined events	Jackie Joyner-Kersee	Heptathlon world record that has stood since 1988

World Records Still Held by Our Top 25

World records set by athletes in our ranking that still stand, as of October 2026.

Event	Athlete	Mark
100 m, men	Usain Bolt	9.58 (2009)
200 m, men	Usain Bolt	19.19 (2009)
100 m, women	Florence Griffith Joyner	10.49 (1988)
200 m, women	Florence Griffith Joyner	21.34 (1988)
1500 m, men	Hicham El Guerrouj	3:26.00 (1998)
1500 m, women	Faith Kipyegon	3:48.68 (2025)
400 m hurdles, women	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	50.37 (2024)
Pole vault, men	Armand Duplantis	6.31 m (2026)
Pole vault, women	Yelena Isinbayeva	5.06 m (2009)
Javelin, men	Jan Železný	98.48 m (1996)
Heptathlon	Jackie Joyner-Kersee	7,291 points (1988)

Honorable Mentions

Seven more athletes who came close and could make a top 25 on another day.

• Javier Sotomayor: Has held the high jump world record of 2.45 m since 1993 and is the only person to clear eight feet.
• Wilma Rudolph: Overcame polio as a child and won the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 m relay at the 1960 Olympics.
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias: Won two golds and a silver at the 1932 Olympics before winning 10 golf majors.
• Bob Beamon: Jumped 8.90 m at the 1968 Olympics, a world record that stood for almost 23 years.
• Lasse Virén: Won the 5000 m and 10,000 m at both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics.
• Ashton Eaton: Won two Olympic decathlon titles and is the only man to score over 9,000 points twice.
• Elaine Thompson-Herah: Won the 100 m and 200 m at both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

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