Check out the video above for his list and a defining of my criteria, but without further ado, here’s my 10 (plus some honorable mentions because I couldn’t resist):

Honorable Mentions:

Joe Kovacs, United States, Shot Put: Kovacs had a great season that included an Olympic bronze medal on a clutch sixth-round throw, plus the world lead of 23.13m, which he threw at the Prefontaine Classic in May. But his lack of an indoor season and – by his lofty standards – an unimpressive post-Olympic run kept him off the list.

Adriana Vilagoš, Serbia, Javelin: Vilagoš had a stellar age-20 season, winning European silver and recording four of the 10 best marks on the year. Unfortunately for the young Serbian, one of her worst days of the season just so happened to be during the Olympic qualifying round, as she failed to make the final by one spot. But I cannot emphasize enough how good she is for her age, and I’d fully expect Vilagoš to be on this list next fall.

Yaime Perez, Cuba, Discus: It feels somewhat unfair to leave Perez outside the top 10, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbled, since she isn’t yet able to compete in global championships after defecting from Cuba two summers ago. The highlight of Perez’s season was her mark of 73.09m in mid-April in Ramona, Oklahoma, which was the farthest throw the event had seen in 35 years. Perez may be able to compete for the U.S. as early as next year, so let’s hope she can get back to racking up medals on the world stage soon.

Arshad Nadeem, Pakistan, Javelin: Nadeem is effectively number 11 on this list. His peak was higher than anybody else's: winning Olympic gold with an Olympic record and moving to sixth on the all-time list with his mark of 92.97m. What keeps him off the list, however, is that he only competed twice, and he finished fourth in his other competition, the Paris Diamond League.

10) Yan Ziyi, China, Javelin

World U20 champion, World U20 Record (64.41m)

Yan is the only athlete on this list that didn’t compete at the Olympics, but that’s solely because throwers under the age of 18 are barred from competing at global championships. If the 16-year-old Yan would’ve made the trip to Paris, she would’ve been a legitimate medal contender. Even without the chance for Olympic glory, Yan’s season was historic. On April 14th, over a month before her 16th birthday, she became the first U20 women’s javelin thrower to ever clear the 64m barrier, doing so with a mark of 64.28m. She broke this record at 15 years, 10 months, and 23 days old – over a year younger than the next youngest athlete was at the time of setting a still-standing world junior record.

Yan dominated all year, ending up with a record of 10-1 and laying claim to five of the 10 best marks in U20 history. Her consistency over a long season was one of the most impressive things about her. She started the season strong in April, kept it rolling by winning a World U20 title in late August, and then reset her own record with a mark of 64.41m in September, landing her ninth on the world list this year. It’ll still be a year or two before we see her truly arrive on the global stage, but the world had better be ready when she does.

9) Haruka Kitaguchi, Japan, Javelin

Olympic champion

Moving on from the best junior women’s javelin thrower in the world this year, we now come to the best senior women’s javelin thrower in the world this year. While 2024 did represent a bit of a step back from the Kitaguchi we saw in 2023, she still got the job done all the same. Kitaguchi defined clutch last year when she won World Championship gold with her last throw, and she had that same trademark ice in her veins this season. Her Olympic victory, the first by a Japanese track and field athlete in 20 years, wasn’t overly dramatic because she won on her first throw, but producing a sizable season’s best of 65.80m on the first throw of a global championship requires nerves of steel.

The round six drama was saved for the Diamond League Final, where Kitaguchi produced her best mark of the year, 66.13m, on her last throw of the season, overtaking Vilagoš to claim her second-straight Diamond League crown. Her peak in 2024 was about a meter shy of the national record that she set last September, but a 7-2 record and three of the best 11 throws in the world this year is about as good as you can hope for in an event with as much variance as women’s javelin.

8) Sarah Mitton, Canada, Shot Put

World Indoor champion

Mitton’s placement on this list is my best example of not putting absolute emphasis on performance at the Olympics. Plain and simple, August 9th was not Mitton’s day. She finished 12th in the Olympic final. The thing is, though, that basically every other day this season was hers. Mitton capped off an undefeated indoor season with gold in Glasgow, and then absolutely tore up the scene over the summer.

She ended the year with five of the nine best marks in the world, six of the top 11, and a 14-7 record. In May, she threw 20.68m at a meet in Pennsylvania, which made her the 10th-best performing woman this century. That mark was most likely bettered on her final throw of the season at the Brussels Diamond League, but the tiniest of heel fouls on the toeboard negated what was a truly special effort (she still won the Diamond League trophy pretty comfortably though). She cleared 20m on six occasions, with three of those performances clearing 20.20m. Yes, she would probably want an Olympic do-over, but that doesn’t entirely take away from how good of a season it was for Mitton.

7) Yemisi Ogunleye, Germany, Shot Put

World Indoor silver medalist, European silver medalist, Olympic champion

Ogunleye’s trajectory over the past two years is similar to Leonardo Fabbri’s – more on him in a moment – where she had a bit of a breakout in Budapest and then carried that momentum into 2024. Ogunleye nailed a pretty significant PB of 19.57m in her first competition of the season, but she took it to another level at the World Indoor Championships.

On her first throw of the competition, she came away with a mark of 20.19m, a 62cm PB. Mitton ended up passing her, but the German had sent an emphatic message that she had arrived. Her outdoor season was solid but not spectacular heading into the Olympics, but she took full advantage of Mitton’s and two-time World champ Chase Jackson’s early exits to put together the performance of a lifetime. In a back-and-forth affair, Ogunleye’s clutch 20.00m throw in round six sealed the deal on a global title.

6) Leonardo Fabbri, Italy, Shot Put

World Indoor bronze medalist, European champion, 5th all-time (22.98m)

Fabbri’s 2024 was a continuation of the late-season breakout from last year that saw him win World silver in Budapest, but the marks he put up were still in excess of what anyone could have expected. After a strong indoor campaign that saw him take home bronze from World Indoors, the Italian went on an 11-meet win streak to open his outdoor season, which came to an end with a fifth-place finish in a rainy Olympic final. Across those 11 meets, Fabbri posted marks of 22.88m, 22.95m, 22.91m and 22.90m – his worst mark was 22.11m to win the Italian title. It was a nearly unprecedented run of success that catapulted him up the all-time lists and had him set on a collision course for a historic Olympic final.

As I alluded to earlier, an unfortunately-timed rain storm threw a wrench in those plans, but Fabbri was able to bounce back by taking the Diamond League crown in a PB of 22.98m a month later. His fourth time throwing at least 22.90m in the same season meant he joined Ryan Crouser (who did so in 2021 and 2023) as the only men in history to accomplish that feat, and only Kovacs and Crouser have more marks of at least 22.90m in their careers. Fabbri had not thrown 22m until last August, and he’s now just a hair off of joining the 23m club. At only 27 (sort of young in shot put terms) and with the growth he’s seen this past year, it’s safe to say he still has much more in the tank.

5) Mykolas Alekna, Lithuania, Discus

European bronze medalist, Olympic silver medalist, World Record (74.35m)

Alekna broke the oldest record in men’s track and field in April. That feat alone would be enough to get him on this list, but the rest of his season was nothing short of spectacular. First things first, let's talk about that world record day in Ramona. His series on April 14th was as follows: 72.21m - 70.32m - 72.89m - 70.51m - 74.35m (WR) - 70.50m. The single greatest performance in the history of discus.

Throughout the rest of the season, the young Lithuanian, who didn’t turn 22 until after the season ended, recorded six of the 10 best marks on the year, and cleared the 70m barrier on five occasions (if you include a 71.39m opener he had in Berkeley that for some reason isn’t listed on his World Athletics page). The only things that held him back from landing higher on this list were his championship performances. He managed only a bronze in Rome and a silver in Paris.

The European Championships final was Alekna’s worst performance of the year by the numbers, but his mark of 67.48m was nearly 3m better than any other thrower in the world’s worst performance. His Olympic silver medal throw of 69.97m was beaten by 3cm by the best throw in Olympic history, so how much can he really be faulted for that? Alekna was the best men’s discus thrower in the world all year, and he’ll have plenty of years left to prove that on the championship stage.

4) Camryn Rogers, Canada, Hammer

Olympic champion

Consistent excellence was the name of the game for Rogers this year, and that was made all the more impressive by how inconsistent other members of the upper echelon of women’s hammer were this year. Rogers backed up her world title from 2023 with Olympic gold, winning by a comfortable margin of about a meter-and-a-half in Paris. She owned three of the seven best marks in the world and was only defeated on the season way back in May.

Her season could’ve been made better with a PB, but it’s tough to hit that bar when you’re already the fifth-best woman in history. In order to prevent ourselves from becoming jaded by her greatness, here’s some context on how historically great of a season Rogers still had: she won two meets with marks of 77.76m, which only seven women (aside from Rogers herself) have ever bettered. She also recorded two other marks that would slot her inside the 25 best performers in history.

3) Ryan Crouser, United States, Shot Put

World Indoor champion, Olympic champion

Crouser lands at three on this list despite dealing with elbow and chest injuries that left him barely throwing up until a week before Olympic Trials. That’s just what the G.O.A.T. does. He got the season underway by securing a World Indoor title, which was the only major item not on his resume already. However it was in Glasgow that he picked up an elbow injury that, when compounded by a pectoral injury a month or so later, jeopardized his chances for his third consecutive Olympic gold. By season’s end, those issues were just a blip on the radar, as Crouser easily claimed the U.S. title at Olympic Trials, dominated the best Olympic field ever assembled to win in Paris, and overall posted some huge marks throughout the campaign.

In just 11 meets, he recorded seven of the 14 best marks in the world, and his average performance across those 11 meets was 22.62m. In case you were wondering, only 11 men in world history have bettered 22.62m. Crouser at his “worst” is still better than nearly anyone in history at their best.

2) Valarie Allman, United States, Discus

Olympic champion

After frustrating finishes at Worlds each of the last two years, Allman strung together a flawless 2024 campaign that lands her just off the top spot here. Zero is the most important number when analyzing her season, because that’s how many losses she took. A perfect 11-0 record in finals was untouched by anyone else on this list. The biggest component of Allman’s season came on the sport’s biggest stage, as she successfully defended her Olympic crown with a dominant Parisian showing. Her securing the global title that had gotten sniped from her in Eugene and Budapest just felt right.

If you include her qualifying round from both the U.S. Trials and the Olympics, which actually had better marks than the respective finals at those competitions, she had seven of the 10 best marks of the year, and all 13 of her competition marks landed inside the top 29 in the world. Her worst performance of the season, 67.17m in early April, was better than all but six other women in the world managed to produce this year. You could be going against Valarie Allman on her worst day of 2024, and she’d likely still beat you by a meter or two.