Duplantis and McLaughlin-Levrone named World Athletes of the Year

World champions Mondo Duplantis and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone have been announced as the World Athletes of the Year, receiving top honours in Monaco in recognition of their standout achievements in 2025.

Sweden’s pole vault star Duplantis and USA’s sprint sensation McLaughlin-Levrone were the final winners to be revealed at the World Athletics Awards 2025 on Sunday (30), on an evening that saw six athletes crowned in three categories – track, field and out of stadium – before the two overall winners were confirmed.

Before being named as the World Athletes of the Year, Duplantis was announced as the men’s field athlete of the year and McLaughlin-Levrone as the women’s track athlete of the year. Spain’s Maria Perez and Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe were confirmed as the out of stadium athletes of the year, while Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi received the men’s track athlete of the year honour and Australia’s Nicola Olyslagers the women’s field athlete of the year accolade.

This year’s Rising Stars were also celebrated, those honours going to world medallists Edmund Serem of Kenya and Zhang Jiale of China.

World Athletes of the Year for 2025

Women’s World Athlete of the Year: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA)
Men’s World Athlete of the Year: Mondo Duplantis (SWE)

Women’s track: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA)
Women’s field: Nicola Olyslagers (AUS)
Women’s out of stadium: Maria Perez (ESP)
Men’s track: Emmanuel Wanyonyi (KEN)
Men’s field: Mondo Duplantis (SWE)
Men’s out of stadium: Sabastian Sawe (KEN)

Women’s Rising Star: Zhang Jiale (CHN)
Men’s Rising Star: Edmund Serem (KEN)

“The World Athletics Awards is a celebration of the very best of our sport. Tonight, we honour our greatest men’s and women’s athletes and rising stars across track, field and out of stadium,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe during the awards ceremony.

“If there’s a motto for this year’s Awards, it is ‘for the athletes, by the athletes’ and the recipients tonight will aptly receive their prizes from some of our most storied Awards winners down the years.

“I want to thank all the athletes present for their inseparable contribution to a memorable 2025, with its crescendo World Athletics Championships in Tokyo – the most widely covered and commercially impactful edition of our sport’s flagship event in its history.”

Duplantis and McLaughlin-Levrone both won Rising Star awards in 2018 and have gone on to become two of the most successful athletes in the sport.

In 2025, Duplantis set four world pole vault records and was undefeated in 16 competitions, his wins including world titles both indoors and outdoors. The 26-year-old is the first male pole vaulter in modern history to go undefeated for two successive years.

He set world records of 6.27m in Clermont-Ferrand, 6.28m in Stockholm, 6.29m in Budapest and 6.30m at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, and won a fifth consecutive Diamond League title.

“Thank you so much. This is such a huge honour. Thank you to the jury and World Athletics for voting me in yet again,” said Duplantis. “I hope to keep pushing it. I hope to keep irritating everyone who has to vote for me for years to come. I’m proud to represent everyone who supports me – my family and my future wife. It’s really important for me to win this for the field eventers. It’s very special, I’m going to really cherish this one.

“I genuinely try to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be. I have a lot of joy that I hope to spread when I’m on the track; I have an immense passion and joy for what I do. I’m so obsessed with pole vaulting and I love pushing myself. I hope that I can inspire the next generation to try athletics, and even pole vaulting. If I can inspire even just a few people to do it, then I feel I’m doing my job.”

McLaughlin-Levrone has also been undefeated for two years in both the 400m flat, which was her main event in 2025, and in the 400m hurdles, extending her win streak in that discipline to 24 races.

The 26-year-old won the world 400m title in Tokyo in a North American record of 47.78, breaking a 42-year-old championship record with the second-fastest 400m of all time. As a result, she became the first athlete to have ever won world titles in both the 400m flat and 400m hurdles, following her win in the latter in Oregon in 2022. She also formed part of USA’s victorious 4x400m team in Tokyo.

“Wow, I’m honestly blown away to win this. Thank you so much, World Athletics, for this honour and recognition,” said McLaughlin-Levrone. “The culmination of the season in Tokyo was a really special moment. I’m so thankful for everyone who supported, watched, voted and who was there throughout this whole process.

“Track and field is, I believe, the best sport in the world. I want to continue to show the world that we are some of the best athletes around. For me, 2025 was a year of stepping outside of the comfort zone and pushing the bounds of what was mentally and physically possible. I want to continue pushing boundaries in 2026.”

Her fellow track athlete of the year, Wanyonyi, won world and Diamond League titles in the 800m and achieved four of the top six performances of the year, including a world lead of 1:41.44 in Monaco.

Olyslagers, who joined Duplantis in being named field athlete of the year, won world high jump titles indoors and outdoors and became the Diamond League champion and world leader with an Oceanian record of 2.04m.

Both out of stadium athletes of the year were unbeaten in 2025. The wins by Perez included world titles in both the 20km race walk and the 35km race walk at the World Championships in Tokyo, while Sawe won the London Marathon and the Berlin Marathon, the latter in a world lead of 2:02:16.

The six category awards were handed out by previous World Athletes of the Year. Letsile Tebogo awarded the track athlete of the year honours, Valerie Adams the field honours and Paula Radcliffe the out of stadium honours, before His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco announced McLaughlin-Levrone as the Women’s World Athlete of the Year and Coe handed Duplantis his Men’s World Athlete of the Year trophy.

Serem and Zhang named Rising Stars of 2025

Despite still being U20 athletes, both 17-year-old Edmund Serem and 19-year-old Zhang Jiale made an impact on the senior stage in 2025.

Rising Stars Edmund Serem and Zhang Jiale (© World Athletics photographer icon Chiara Montesano)

Zhang improved the world U20 hammer record to 77.24m at the Chinese Championships in Quzhou and clinched bronze at the World Championships in Tokyo, throwing 77.10m to secure a spot on the podium alongside Canada’s Camryn Rogers and her Chinese compatriot Zhao Jie.

Serem also became a world bronze medallist as he finished third in the 3000m steeplechase behind New Zealand’s Geordie Beamish and Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali in Tokyo. He was runner-up in the Diamond League final and achieved top four finishes in four other Diamond League meetings during the season.

Keeping to the theme of the evening of ‘for the athletes, by the athletes’, 2018 Rising Star winner Duplantis presented the awards to Serem and Zhang.

McAvaney wins President’s Award

The winner of the President’s Award was also announced in Monaco on Sunday, the honour going to Australian broadcaster Bruce McAvaney in recognition of his tireless contribution to sports media and commentary, and the philanthropy he brings to athletics.

“The recipient of this year’s President’s Award is one of very few people who can say they achieved the dream they had at the age of five,” said Coe. “Bruce has been involved in international sport at the highest level, broadcasting to the widest possible audience over five decades.

“His drive for knowledge, combined with the ability to recognise performance in a historical context, and a genuine respect and regard for individuals has led him to be acknowledged as one of Australia’s greatest sports commentators.”

After receiving his award in Monaco, McAvaney said: “Athletics has been the central thread of my career at Seven and is a sport I hold incredibly close to my heart. To be honoured in this way, and by someone I have such enormous admiration for in Sebastian Coe, is truly one of the highlights of my career.

“I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work across many major events and sports, but nothing compares to athletics at the highest level. The opportunity to call those defining, once-in-a-lifetime moments are what fuel my passion and make my job as a broadcaster so special.”

The President’s Award, first awarded in 2016, recognises and honours exceptional service to athletics.