The intensity of women’s sprinting in 2025 only heightens as we enter the top half of our countdown. Part 2 features athletes we’ve ranked 5–1, some of the most gifted women of this generation, pushing their events, and by extension, the sport, into new territory.
5. Salwa Eid Naser
Salwa Eid Naser was at the heart of a historic year for women’s 400m running, as she and two other athletes pushed the event into a new era and dismantled long-standing barriers. She opened her season in astonishing form, running 48.94s at the Felix Sanchez Classic, the fastest 400m ever recorded by a woman in March, before returning an hour later to break her Bahraini 200m National Record (NR) with 22.45s, her best since her career-defining 2019 season.
Her momentum only grew. At the inaugural Grand Slam Track meet in Kingston, Naser stormed to a dominant 48.67s win, the fastest 400m ever run in April. She followed that with another runner-up GST finish, then won her first Diamond League appearance of the year in Doha with a smooth 49.83s. Across the circuit, she collected victories at multiple distances, including a windy 11.36s over 100m, and broke the Bahraini 300m NR with a superb 35.85s.
Despite a series of losses to Marileidy Paulino midway through the season, Naser delivered emphatically when it mattered most. In a packed Diamond League final, she powered to 48.70s to reclaim control, producing one of her sharpest performances of the year as Paulino had no answer on the home straight.
She carried that fire into the World Championships, producing a staggering 48.19s to win Bronze in what will go down as one of the greatest 400m races ever run — a final so fast it yielded the quickest times in history for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th place!
4. Femke Bol
Femke Bol loves racing, and she has proven 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 emerged that she had adopted a new hurdle rhythm: attacking the first hurdle off her weaker right leg, alternating lead legs through the first five hurdles, and switching to her stronger left from hurdle six to the finish — a system Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone had mastered years earlier.
The transition proved seamless. Bol won every 400m Hurdles race she entered, extending her Diamond League streak to 30 consecutive wins and claiming her fifth Diamond League Trophy in Zurich. Her dominance on the circuit was undeniable.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, she arrived as the overwhelming favourite in McLaughlin-Levrone’s absence 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.
3. 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 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 Record 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, finishing 2nd 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.
2. 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.
She began the year on the GST circuit, showing off her versatility by doubling in the 400m and 400m Hurdles and even entering the 100m and 100m Hurdles. 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 (CR) – 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 CR of 3:16.61. With World titles in both the 400m and 400m Hurdles, respectively, 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.
1. 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 GST 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 CR 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 (PB) 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.
