Five global sporting giants who made 2025 their own

From shattered world records to era-defining championships, 2025 belonged to athletes who redefined excellence. Across athletics, tennis, motorsport and badminton, these global superstars dominated their fields, pushed sporting boundaries and delivered performances that will be remembered for years.

Armand Duplantis

It has been five years since Armand Duplantis broke Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie’s world record (WR) of 6.16m. Since then, the Swedish pole vaulter has continued to raise the bar bit by bit. Not only because he is making gradual improvements but also because every time he betters his own mark at a designated World Athletics meeting, he receives a substantial bonus.

The 2025 season was no different as the 26-year-old set a new WR four times — 6.27m (Clermont-Ferrand), 6.28m (Stockholm Diamond League), 6.29m (Budapest) — and saved the best for last with a clearance of 6.30m at the World Championships in Tokyo. Overall, the double Olympic and three-time world champion has already broken the WR 14 times. For Mondo, the sky is the limit.

The Swede is truly one of the biggest track-and-field stars and hence was recognised by the global body as the Men’s World Athlete of the Year. Every time he competes, spectators can safely assume that he is going to win — he has done so in his last 37 competitions, a streak which began at the World Championships 2023 in Budapest. In every event he participates in, the real drama starts once everyone else has been knocked out. Duplantis competing against himself, with the crowd and his competitors cheering for him, is a spectacle at every major championship.

As a side hustle, Duplantis has also released two singles —  Bop and  4L — adding another layer to a resume that stretches far beyond the field.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone made switching disciplines look like a piece of cake. The 26-year-old American, having already established her dominance in the 400m hurdles with two Olympic golds, one World Championship title and the world record over the past five years, decided to run the 400m flat as her primary event this season. It was a huge risk since she had to compete against the Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino and Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser, two of the fastest quartermilers in history.

The American, who had a personal best (PB) of 48.74s in the 400m before 2025, began the year clocking 50.32s in Jamaica in April. At the US trials for the World Championships, she brought it down to 48.90s. But no one could have imagined what she had in store for the biggest event of the year.

Despite rain pouring down on the track at the National Stadium in Tokyo, McLaughlin-Levrone clinched the world title by clocking 47.78s, breaking the 42-year-old championship record and narrowly missing out on Germany’s Marita Koch’s world record of 47.60s from 1985. For 40 years, no woman had gone sub-48 seconds over the 400m flat. Such was the American’s impact that Paulino also clocked a new PB of 47.98s — the third-fastest time in history.

McLaughlin-Levrone, who was already great over the barriers, became the first athlete to win world titles in both the 400m flat and the 400m hurdles. She was named the Women’s World Athlete of the Year by World Athletics.

Carlos Alcaraz

Carlos Alcaraz did not have the ideal start to 2025 as he went down to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open quarterfinal, a match he could have won. But from February, the 22-year-old Spaniard began putting together the best season of his young career so far. Jannik Sinner, his main rival who successfully defended his title in Melbourne, was forced to sit out for three months due to a doping ban. Alcaraz gained crucial ranking points during that period to close in on the No. 1 ranking the Italian had held since June 2024.

A month after beating Sinner in straight sets in the Italian Open final — Sinner’s first event after the ban — Alcaraz faced him again in the summit clash at Roland Garros. The Spaniard came back from two sets down and saved three championship points to defeat the Italian 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-6(10-2) in perhaps the greatest French Open final ever, lasting five hours and 29 minutes in Paris.

The duo met in the finals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open as well. While Sinner took revenge for the Paris heartbreak with a four-set triumph at the grass Major, Alcaraz dethroned the Italian in clinical fashion at Flushing Meadows. In 2022, Alcaraz had become the youngest-ever World No. 1 after his maiden U.S. Open title. Three years later, after the same event, he regained the top spot in the ATP rankings.

The Spaniard won a total of eight titles and finished the season with a win–loss record of 71–9. He also showed improvements on indoor hard courts by reaching the final of the ATP Finals in Turin, where he lost to Sinner. Nevertheless, he finished the year as World No. 1. He was also selected as the winner of the 2025 Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award for his exemplary behaviour on and off the court.

Lando Norris

It didn’t take long for Formula One fans to observe that McLaren had a championship-winning car for the 2025 season.

For much of the year, it seemed as if Oscar Piastri, the Australian driver racing in only

his second season, was going to be the one to turn that dream into reality for the orange team. But Lando Norris, Piastri’s teammate who had been with McLaren since 2019, eventually shifted the momentum in his favour. The two drivers battled hard, leaving Red Bull’s four-time defending champion Max Verstappen behind by a fair distance at one stage of the season.

However, the Dutchman found his mojo at the right time. A few strategic blunders from McLaren turned what looked like a procession into a thrilling three-way fight for the crown heading into the final race in Abu Dhabi.

Britain’s Norris, who had perhaps failed to live up to his potential and been mocked as Lando ‘No Wins’, finally stayed calm under pressure. By finishing third under the floodlights at the Yas Marina Circuitm — his 18th podium of the season — the 26-year-old beat Verstappen by two points to become the Drivers’ World Champion. The triumph was the first for a McLaren driver since Lewis Hamilton in 2008. Piastri and Norris also ensured a comfortable march to the Constructors’ Championship for their team.

An Se-young

Reigning Olympic champion An Se-young set a new benchmark for women’s badminton with an astonishing 2025 season. The 23-year-old Korean won 11 titles — the Malaysia Open, India Open, Orléans Masters, All England Open, Indonesia Open, Japan Open, China Masters, Denmark Open, French Open, Australian Open and the BWF World Tour Finals.

With these 11 titles, she broke her own record of nine titles in a season from 2023 and matched Japan’s Kento Momota’s all-time record from 2019 to become the most successful singles player in a season.

She also helped Korea reach the final of the Sudirman Cup, a biennial mixed team tournament, but her side lost 1-3 to China.

With her speed, sharp reflexes and overall court craft, the former world champion dominated her opponents throughout the year, finishing with a staggering win-loss record of 73-4 (a win percentage of 94.80). Only Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi and China’s Chen Yu Fei (twice) and Han Yue could beat the Korean in 2025.

An also became the first badminton player to earn over USD 1 million in prize money in a single season.

Published on Jan 02, 2026