By Citius Mag Staff
December 24, 2025
It can be very exciting to watch a ten-second race from one end of the track to the other. Or rewatch with your friends and family over a glass of eggnog and a crackling fire, given that not much new track is happening in the penultimate week of December. But sometimes, the excitement over a particular result or matchup comes not from the performance on the track itself, but from all of the leadup and fallout that happened outside the stadium.
While the year’s on-track action was some of the best in recent memory, the highs and lows the sport experienced outside of official competition were also mighty notable. We saw villain arcs emerge, all-time greats step away from the sport, and huge swings at innovation with mixed results. We had to learn about bankruptcy law and sit by watching while the non-track world suggested that six seconds isn’t that much time over the course of a mile.
Some moments inspired, others enraged, and plenty more left us scratching our heads. And above all, we were grateful that the dull moments were few and far between.
Some things were too good to be true: This much is certain: on October 13th, 2024, Ruth Chepngetich completed the Chicago Marathon in two hours, nine minutes, and 56 seconds, obliterating the existing world record and becoming the first woman to run under 2:10 for 26.2. Even though it happened, it was almost unfathomable. That 2:09:56 mark remains the fastest time on the books, but it now carries an asterisk that many felt was implied from the beginning. This March, Chepngetich was popped for a masking agent and is now in the midst of a three-year doping ban. Because her suspension was only backdated to April of this year, her results prior to that haven’t been wiped out of the ledger.
Was this a depressing nadir for the sport? A sign that no amount of doping control can ever really tamp down the tide of cheating? Or was it proof that the system—with all of its slow-moving quirks—actually works? Maybe some combination of both. It’s hard to say. But this much is also certain: you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the sport defending Chepngetich’s 2:09 marathon as the legitimate world record. So maybe the Pyrrhic victory of achieving an increasingly-elusive popular consensus matters more than what any all-time list says.
Grand Slam’s cracks start to show: Michael Johnson’s big, braggadocious foray into the pro racing scene dominated the headlines this year. Unfortunately for him, the headlines were mostly and increasingly negative, as the league that billed itself as the most lucrative opportunity for track and field high-earners found itself in intractable financial trouble, ultimately filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy—sorry, “court-supervised reorganization.”
GST was a big, bold idea that couldn’t quite get the momentum to take flight. The sport needs big, bold ideas and people willing to try them! But it also needs, well… money. If one moment defined the struggles of GST this year, it has to be the announcement of the cancellation of the Los Angeles meet. It’s not exactly a good sign to get three laps into a mile and then step off the track. And yet, the League insisted that the early ending was because they’d proven the concept so effectively that a fourth event was simply unnecessary, which in retrospect really seems like an inflection point where criticism of GST’s approach started to become more of a widely-held sentiment. If there’s one thing track and field fans won’t buy, it’s any attempt to spin a DNF as a season’s best.
Faith Kipyegon shoots for the moon: Technically, the “Breaking4” project happened on a track. But the off-the-books, unsanctioned Nike expo was more of a science experiment located at a carnival than a track meet, so it lands in the “off-track” category for us. That certainly shouldn’t be taken as a sign of disrespect to the GOAT of the 1500m, who still ran one mile faster than any woman ever had before, even if she did fall short of the four-minute barrier by a decently large margin.
Really, the most impressive part of Kipyegon’s exhibition was her willingness to step off the beaten path. There’s almost nothing left for Faith Kipyegon to accomplish on the normal checklist, so instead we have to measure her 2025 season in streaks: her fourth world record, her fourth World title, her four-year winning streak in the 1500m, etc. Even if it was an exercise in marketing hype and brand visibility, Breaking4 couldn’t have happened without Faith saying yes to something weird and new.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce passes the baton: Technically, SAFP’s final baton pass was an on-track moment, as she handed off the hopes of Jamaican sprinting both literally and figuratively to the 21-year-old Clayton twins on the Worlds 4x100m. But none of SAFP’s performances in her final year of professional competition were particularly notable, especially when held up against two decades of historic excellence.
Instead, what we’ll remember from Shelly-Ann’s victory lap is that she had the opportunity to end her legendary career the right way: on her terms. It would’ve been all too easy to take her ignominious conclusion to the Paris Olympics as a sign from above to hang ‘em up, but instead SAFP had the opportunity to travel the globe on a farewell tour, allowing fans and rivals alike to pour one last draught of praise into her overflowing cup. It’s not often that you get to send off an athlete whose career is so long and storied with a fitting and overwhelmingly positive goodbye, and it sure feels good. She deserves it, and we do too.
Kerley got Enhanced: 2025 was not a great year for Fred Kerley. He was arrested twice in South Florida and issued a years-long suspension for whereabouts violations. But now, even if he wanted to come back and compete at the conclusion of his ban, he won’t be able to, because he also signed on to compete in the Enhanced Games on September 17th.
This is hopefully all we’ll ever write about the Enhanced Games—so let’s just establish that its existence sucks. In some sense, we understand why Kerley, already serving a ban and unable to make a living from track and field otherwise, would sign on. But in doing so, he lends a frustrating credibility to the Enhanced Games. Here’s an athlete who at his prime was legitimately great—will he be able to dip under Usain Bolt’s 9.58 with a significant amount of pharmaceutical assistance? Probably not, but who knows. But the open-ended question will inevitably attract some eyeballs, even if they are just tuning in with hopes of watching failure. All that accomplishes, really, is the continued enrichment of some particularly ghoulish people looking to exploit athletes who have—for one reason or another—backed themselves into a corner.
Look, you’ve seen the hats: we love track and field. Generally speaking, that statement is about the competition-side of the sport. But all the wild stuff that takes place outside of the oval can be plenty entertaining as well. Here’s hoping 2026 provides lots of incredible racing, jumping, and throwing… and maybe just a handful of bizarre happenings that get our group chats firing on all cylinders.
Citius Mag Staff
