Part 1 of our World’s Top 10 Female Athletes highlights five women who carried the 2025 season in different, unforgettable ways. From undefeated runs to historic breakthroughs, the sport witnessed performances that will be talked about for decades.
10. Marileidy Paulino
What a year the women’s 400m produced, possibly the best in the history of the event. The reigning Olympic Champion, Marileidy Paulino entered 2025 facing immense pressure, especially with Salwa Eid Naser back to her best and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone shifting her focus to the 400m.
Paulino opened at the Grand Slam Track (GST) meet in Kingston, finishing 3rd behind Naser and Gabby Thomas while clocking the fastest season opener of her career. She bounced back powerfully in Philadelphia, sweeping both the 200m and 400m titles and setting a new Dominican National Record (NR) of 22.30s in the 200m. She repeated the double at the next stop, this time beating Naser again to reaffirm her place at the top.
She dominated on the Diamond League circuit until the Zurich final, taking Silver behind Naser. At the World Championships in Tokyo, Paulino eased off too early in her semifinal, finishing 2nd and being drawn in the outermost lane, lane 9, for the final.
She turned the disadvantage into strength, attacking from the gun and running blind on the outside to storm home in 47.98s for Silver behind McLaughlin-Levrone. It was the fastest 2nd place 400m in history, a new NR and a time that made her the third fastest woman ever. Paulino ended her season by defending her ATHLOS 400m crown.
9. Lilian Odira
Lilian Odira was one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 2025 season. The once unheralded middle-distance runner had stepped away from the sport after 2019, following a promising junior career that saw her run 2:11.73 over 800m officially, and even faster in unsanctioned meets. She won the Kenyan High School Championships in 2016 and took Bronze at the East African School Games before pausing her career.
After becoming a mother in 2020 and again in 2023, Odira returned with renewed focus, and the comeback was swift and stunning. She won the Kenyan Olympic qualifier ahead of Mary Moraa, claimed Silver at the African Championships, and reached the 800m semifinals in her Olympic debut in Paris. She later made her World Indoor debut in Nanjing, where a fall in the semifinal derailed her medal ambitions.
Her outdoor season was nothing short of special. She opened with a PB of 1:58.31 at the Kip Keino Classic, won the Kenyan Championships, and dominated the World Championships Trials. At the Silesia Diamond League, she clocked 1:56.52 for 2nd behind Keely Hodgkinson’s 1:54.74, a preview of her mounting challenge at the top.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, Odira won both her heat and semifinal before delivering the race of her life in the final. Patient at the bell and flawless in her execution, she surged past the leaders in the closing metres to claim GOLD in 1:54.62, breaking Jarmila Kratochvílová’s long-standing Championship Record. The performance made her the 7th fastest woman in history and completed one of the most remarkable ascents the 800m has ever witnessed.
8. Anna Hall
Few athletes embody resilience and versatility like Anna Hall. After a knee surgery in January 2024, three years after breaking her foot mid-competition at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials, Hall faced another steep comeback. She defied the odds to win the U.S. Olympic Trials in the Heptathlon and later placed 5th in Paris, a commendable return given the setbacks.
But 2025 marked a different chapter. Hall opened her season by placing 2nd behind Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone over 400m at GST Miami. She then delivered a career-defining performance at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, scoring a PB of 7032 points to become the joint second-highest scorer in Heptathlon history alongside Carolina Klüft, behind only Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
She set new PBs in the High Jump, Shot Put, Javelin, and 800m, where her 2:01.23 became the fastest 800m ever run in a Heptathlon. In July, Hall claimed her fourth consecutive U.S. title, making her the first athlete, male or female, to achieve the feat.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, she made history, becoming the first American woman since Jackie Joyner-Kersee 33 years earlier to win global Heptathlon GOLD. Hall totaled 6888 points, finishing 174 points clear of Ireland’s Kate O’Connor, and later capped her season with the World Athletics Combined Events Tour title.
7. Femke Bol
Femke Bol loves racing, and she has proved it year after year. So, when she hinted at skipping the indoor season for the first time since 2015, it came as a surprise. Indoor dominance has long been her calling card, but with the European Indoor Championships on home soil in Apeldoorn, she showed up for her people, anchoring both the women’s and mixed 4x400m relays to GOLD.
Added intrigue followed her into the outdoor season when news broke that she had adopted a new hurdle rhythm, attacking the first hurdle off her weaker right leg before alternating lead legs through the first five hurdles and switching to her stronger left from hurdle six to the finish, a system mastered years earlier by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.
The transition was seamless. Bol won every 400m Hurdles race she entered, extending her streak on the Diamond League circuit to 30 consecutive wins and claiming her fifth Diamond League Trophy in Zurich.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, she arrived as the overwhelming favourite in the absence of McLaughlin-Levrone, and delivered emphatically, storming to GOLD in a World Lead (WL) of 51.54s to extend her unbeaten 400m Hurdles run through 2025. She added Silver in the mixed 4x400m and Bronze in the women’s 4x400m, capping another exceptional season.
6. Valarie Allman
Valarie Allman takes the No. 6 spot on our World’s Top 10 Female Athletes of 2025 after another dominant, undefeated season. Her winning streak, untouched since 2023, stretched even further as she swept all 15 competitions she entered this year.
She surpassed 70m four times, with her season’s defining moment coming in Ramona, where she launched 73.52m, obliterating her own US record of 71.46m set in 2022 and reclaiming the North American Record from Yaime Pérez. The throw was also the farthest women’s discus mark recorded globally since 1989 and moved Allman to sixth on the world all-time list.
Her reign extended across championships. She claimed her 7th consecutive US title and later lifted her 5th Diamond League Trophy in Zurich, reinforcing her iron grip on the discipline.
The crowning achievement came in Tokyo at the 2025 World Championships, where Allman finally completed her global medal set, capturing GOLD to add to her Olympic titles and the Bronze and Silver she secured at the previous two World Championships.
