Each with a season full of achievements, Part 2 of the World’s Top 10 Female Athletes in 2025 highlights five women who dominated their events with consistency, speed, and skill. From the sprints to middle and long-distance races, these athletes delivered standout performances, set records, and proved themselves to be the very best in the world.
5. Faith Cherotich
Faith Cherotich’s love for running started early, fueled by inspiration from her role model and biggest supporter, Faith Kipyegon. Her rise has been swift and striking. At just 17, she won Bronze at the 2021 World U20 Championships in Nairobi, then returned a year later to claim GOLD in Cali, signalling the arrival of a major talent.
She carried that momentum onto the senior stage, first announcing herself at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, and later at the Paris 2024 Olympics, where she won Bronze in a then Personal Best of 8:55.15 in the 3000m steeplechase.
Cherotich began 2025 where she left off, dominating her opening Diamond League meetings and repeatedly defeating the reigning Olympic champion. She delivered a landmark performance at the Prefontaine Classic, running 8:48.71 to become the 4th fastest woman in history, before closing the Diamond League season in Zurich with a commanding win, finishing nearly 15 seconds ahead of the field.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, the Olympic podium reunited for the first time, but it was Cherotich who rewrote the script. The 21-year-old ran a brilliantly measured race, tracking Winfred Yavi before surging clear on the final lap to claim GOLD in 8:51.59, setting a new Championship Record. Already an Olympic and world Bronze medallist, she is now the cupbearer in women’s steeplechase.
4. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone
One could run out of superlatives for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Gifted across multiple events, she holds world-class marks in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles, 100m hurdles, and even the Long Jump. After an injury in 2023, she reminded the world of her greatness in 2024, and 2025 proved it wasn’t just a phase.
She began the year on the Grand Slam Track circuit, showing off her versatility by doubling in the 400m and 400mH and even entering the 100m and 100mH. She ran a PB of 11.21s for 2nd in the 100m, her first race at that distance in seven years, and 12.70s for 4th in the hurdles, beating specialists in fields stacked against her.
Afterward, she committed fully to the 400m. She won at the Prefontaine Classic and then dominated the US Championships in 48.90s, narrowly missing Sanya Richards-Ross’s American Record of 48.70s. Her decision to focus on the quarter-mile came at a time when the event was one of the most competitive eras in history, with Marileidy Paulino and Salwa Eid Naser at the forefront, and because of this, some may have doubted her.
At the World Championships, she was relentless. McLaughlin-Levrone ran 48.29s in the semifinals, setting a new US Record, before taking charge from the gun in the final against Paulino and Eid Naser. She crossed the line in an astonishing 47.78s, breaking a 42-year-old Championship Record – the oldest still standing in World Championship history – and posting the fastest women’s 400m in four decades.
Her historic season ended by anchoring Team USA to GOLD in the women’s 4x400m relay with another Championship Record of 3:16.61. With her World titles in both the 400m and 400mH, McLaughlin-Levrone became the first athlete ever to achieve this feat and climbed to No. 2 on the all-time list in the former, cementing her status as one of the greatest track athletes in history.
3. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden
In 2025, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden emerged not just as a champion, but as a force rewriting sprint history. After winning Bronze in the 100m and GOLD in the 4x100m at the Paris Olympics, she described that season as one of the toughest of her career due to injuries. The world saw a new version of her in 2025: stronger, sharper, and newly married.
She began the year by signing on to the Grand Slam Track circuit and quickly established her dominance, winning all three legs she entered. At GST Philadelphia, she produced a remarkable double, clocking 10.73s in the 100m and 21.99s in the 200m. Her victory over Olympic Champion Gabby Thomas in the 200m was especially impressive, as she was on a return trail to the distance for the first time since her college days at Coastal Carolina.
Within weeks, she defeated both 100m and 200m Olympic Champions, Gabby Thomas and Julien Alfred. She carried that momentum to the US Championships, widely regarded as the toughest national trials in the world, and became the first woman since Torri Edwards in 2003 to win the 100m and 200m double.
At the World Championships, she completed a historic sprint treble, a feat previously achieved only by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in 2013. She set a new Championship Record in the 100m, running 10.61s to erase the mark set by her training partner Sha’Carri Richardson in 2023. She then followed it with GOLD in the 200m, posting a Personal Best of 21.68s, and leaving no doubt about her supremacy on the global stage.
Jefferson-Wooden closed the 2025 season undefeated in the 100m and firmly as the world’s leading athlete in the short sprints, having bested every major rival she faced.
2. Faith Kipyegon
Very few names resonate like Faith Kipyegon’s when it comes to redefining excellence on the track. The undisputed queen of the 1500m continued her reign in 2025, adding another chapter to one of the most remarkable distance-running legacies in history.
She opened the year in Xiamen, setting a meeting record in the 1000m with a time of 2:29.21, just 0.23 seconds shy of Svetlana Masterkova’s World Record (WR). On June 26, in a special Nike-organized event, Kipyegon attempted a sub 4-minute mile. Though not record-eligible, she clocked 4:06.42, faster than her own WR, using a team of male and female pacemakers and custom racing gear, producing the fastest mile ever run by a woman.
Her official 1500m season opener came at the Prefontaine Classic, where she shattered her own WR, running 3:48.68 – her third WR in the event – taking 0.36 seconds off the mark she set the previous year in Paris. Kipyegon also came close to the 3000m World Record, breaking the African Record previously held by Beatrice Chebet with an 8:07.04 performance at the Silesia Diamond League.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, she claimed GOLD in the 1500m, her fourth world title in the event. That victory equalled Hicham El Guerrouj’s record for the most World Championship titles in the 1500m and made her the most decorated athlete ever in the event, with two additional Silvers from previous editions.
Kipyegon added Silver in the 5000m before closing out the season with a dominant mile win at ATHLOS. She remained undefeated in the 1500m throughout 2025, cementing her status as possibly the greatest middle-distance runners of all time.
- Beatrice Chebet
Ranked number 1 on our list of the World’s Top 10 Female Athletes in 2025 is Beatrice Chebet who, just as she did the year before, pieced together a stunning season. A season of dreams, one might even call it – one that could only be rivalled by her 2024 campaign where she won everything possible at the Olympic Games and set the 10,000m WR.
Chebet began her year with Cross Country races in Spain and later in Eldoret, before her track season took off on the Diamond League circuit. In Xiamen, she won the women’s 5000m with ease, and in Rabat, she stormed to victory in the 3000m, setting an African Record of 8:11.56, the second-fastest time in history and the quickest in 32 years.
In Rome, she became the second-fastest woman ever in the 5000m, running 14:03.69 to break Faith Kipyegon’s Kenyan Record. Though initially not targeting the WR, finishing just three seconds outside it gave her the vision and confidence to aim higher for the rest of the season.
At the Prefontaine Classic, Chebet mounted a bold attack in the 5000m, tracked by Gudaf Tsegay and Agnes Ngetich. The trio hit 1km in 2:47, on World Record pace. By 3km, Chebet split 8:22.96, more than a second inside the required pace, and with 200m to go, she surged past her rivals to cross the line in 13:58.06, shattering Tsegay’s WR by over two seconds.
She demonstrated remarkable versatility by clocking a massive PB of 3:54.73 over 1500m before the World Championships, where she completed the 5000m and 10,000m double, repeating her Olympic heroics from Paris.
In doing so, Chebet became only the third woman in history to achieve the double after Tirunesh Dibaba in 2005 and Vivian Cheruiyot in 2011.
