Repeat Offenders

This category is composed of current record holders that have the best chance at one-upping themselves in the year ahead. Most of these athletes have been at the top of their respective event for years, but we also have a newcomer to the record books looking to break a historic barrier.

Men's Pole Vault

Mondo Duplantis is far and away the best pole vaulter in the world right now – he has lost only four times in 69 competitions over the past four years – but his dominance goes far beyond that. Duplantis ended the year as the top-ranked athlete in the sport, in part due to his season capping 6.23m vault, which bettered his old world record by one centimeter. This was the seventh time Duplantis has raised the world record since the beginning of 2020. Most importantly, the nature of the pole vault allows him to end most of his victories with at least an attempt at a new record, so it would almost be more surprising if he doesn’t reset the mark in 2024

Men’s Shot Put

If any man can claim to be as dominant in their event as Duplantis, it's Ryan Crouser. The American shot-putter extended his world record early this spring on the way to a nearly undefeated season. Crouser’s promise for 2024, however, is due to the untapped potential of the new “Crouser Slide” technique that he debuted this year, which he thinks can help him throw beyond the 24m boundary. If the two-time Olympic gold medalist is right, he may be able to push the world record to a distance that could be nearly impossible for anyone else to approach in the near future… as long as they extend the landing area far enough for him.

Women’s Triple Jump

In her last Olympic appearance, Yulimar Rojas broke the 16 year old world record in the triple jump and then furthered it the following year. While 2023 was, by Rojas’ standards, a down year – she needed a heroic sixth round jump to secure her fourth consecutive world title – she remains alone at the top of the event. Rojas is responsible for each of the 18 longest jumps this decade. If she can rise to the occasion of the Olympic flame once again and outjump her former self, the 28-year-old can squeeze one more world record out of her prime.

As a bonus, the triple jump record on the men’s side might be worth watching as well. Jamaican wunderkind (his words, not mine) Jayden Hibbert is within striking distance. Hibbert improved his personal best by 60 centimeters in 2023 and now sits only 42 centimeters shy of Jonathan Edwards’ nearly three-decade-old record.

Men’s Marathon

The sport of marathoning has been turned upside down in recent years, and no individual has exemplified that more than Kelvin Kiptum. By now everyone has heard the story of a debut at the distance to the world record in less than a year, but I still don’t think we give enough credit for how absolutely nuts that is. This event may be the only one on the list we already have an actual world record attempt for on the schedule, as Kiptum has voiced his intentions to run under two hours in this year’s Rotterdam Marathon. If Kiptum can pull it off, it will mark the first time that the marathon record has been lowered in three consecutive years since it dropped over three minutes from 1963 to 1965. While the 24-year-old Kenyan is bound to have a bad race at some point in his career, there are no reasons to believe it will happen anytime soon.

Long-Standing Records

Each of the following records was set long before the athlete most primed to break it was born. These marks are held by all-time greats, but a new batch of stars are looking not only to put their names into the record book, but cement their legacies as the greatest of all time in their respective events.

Men’s 1500m/Mile

Jakob Ingebrigtsen has had his eyes on Hicham El Guerrouj’s records for a while now, and he won’t stop going after them until they are his. The Olympic champ got much closer this past season, taking over a second off his 1500m personal best, and cutting off nearly three seconds in a thrilling mile at the Prefontaine Classic. Ingebrigtsen still has fractions of a second to shave off in each event, but as the rest of the middle distance world improves around him – evidenced by Yared Nuguse shadowing him to the line at Pre – the rising tide may lift all boats, pushing Ingebrigtsen over the edge to claim the quarter-century old records for himself.

Women’s 800m

After seeing Athing Mu end an up-and-down 2023 with an American record performance at the Pre Classic, I am buying all of the stock I can for her upcoming season. While Jarmila Kratochvílová’s 40-year-old world record is still over a second and a half away, Mu is just 21 and clearly still improving. Additionally, the 800m is an event where time trial record attempts just haven’t occurred recently – so we’ve likely never seen Mu go all out from gun to tape. But she won’t need motivation to run fast in any races with Keely Hodgkinson or Mary Moraa on her heels in 2024.

Most importantly, it's no secret that Mu has had a complicated relationship with her enjoyment of the sport since her rapid ascent to stardom, and maybe a record chase is the goal that piques her interest in the leadup to defending her Olympic title. If she decides to step into a fast-paced Diamond League race this summer (and ditches her affinity for the outside of lane one for at least one race) track and field’s oldest record may be coming off the books.

Women’s 200m

In last year’s World Championship final Shericka Jackson blew away the field en route to the second-fastest time in history, but almost looked disappointed afterward. After amassing five of the eight fastest 200m times in history over the past two years, Jackson is ready to take down Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 35-year-old record. She was just seven hundredths of a second off the mark last summer in Budapest, even with significantly less of a tailwind than Flo-Jo had. Jackson turns 30 this summer, but has set personal bests in each of the last three years. If she does it again in 2024, the record will likely be hers.