We recently started a series covering the Top 10 Male Athletes in the world for the 2024 season. Here is the concluding part of the story. Click here to read Part 1 in case you missed it.
5. Grant Holloway
For a whopping 10 years, no man has been able to beat Grant Holloway over the 60m hurdles. His last defeat came when he was in high school. Since then, he has won five world titles and an Olympic GOLD and Silver.
Equally in 2024, the story was the same. He dominated the World Indoor tour scene, going on to win his second US indoor title in Albuquerque, breaking his own World Record (WR) at high altitude in a time of 7.27s! Selected for the World Indoor Championships, he earned his 76th consecutive win over 60m hurdles in Glasgow and it meant he was, for a second consecutive time, World Indoor Champion.
He equalled his Championship Record (CR) of 7.29s with another brilliant performance – perfect start, superb transition and powerful finish. Afterwards, attention turned outdoors where he went on a winning spree, most of his races usually won within his first two strides. At the US Olympic Trials, Holloway completed three rounds of the 110m Hurdles, running under 13s on every occasion.
In the final, he posted a World Lead (WL) of 12.86s, which remained the fastest in the world for the rest of the season. At his first Olympic outing in Tokyo, he was on his way to GOLD and faded rather badly into 2nd. Paris was a test to see if he could overcome that and he did beautifully, leading the race from start to finish in a time of 12.99s.
One of his more significant victories for the season came at the Zurich Diamond League where he clocked 12.99s to become the man with the highest sub-13 clockings in event history, surpassing Allen Johnson who held the record at 11.
4. Letsile Tebogo
At a really young age, Letsile Tebogo was already a master of his craft, hence it was no surprise really that he was Africa’s best sprinter in 2024, having only just emerged as the continent’s first medallist in the men’s 100m at the World Championships a year before.
Tebogo enjoyed success for lots of reasons, but one of the things that got clearer as things progressed was how much competitive range he had, with his ability to rub shoulders with the very best from 100m to 400m.
He kicked off the year with a bang in South Africa, storming to a world 300m best of 30.69 at the Simbine Curro Classic Shoot-Out. With that performance, he took more than a tenth of a second off the previous world best of 30.81 set by Wayde van Niekerk in Ostrava, Czech Republic, in 2017.
He ran the 400m next, posting a time of 44.29s which at the time was the second fastest in the world and remained one of the best in the world for the entire year.
Tebogo played a pivotal role in bringing Botswana to qualification for the Paris Olympics in the men’s 4x400m. They won GOLD in The Bahamas, running a time of 2:59.11 which made them the second African country behind Nigeria to win a sprint relay at the Championships.
A day after competing at a meet in Los Angeles, Tebogo’s mother, Seratiwa, passed away after a brief illness, a painful loss which would set the course for the rest of his story. He stopped competing, returned home to Botswana and re-emerged just over a month after.
Less than two months after his return to competitive racing, he went on to make the final of the men’s 100m on his Olympic debut. Against the huge purple backdrop of Paris, Letsile Tebogo made history for Botswana, winning their first Olympic GOLD in any sport.
Storming to the 200m title, he defeated the American duo of Kenny Bednarek and 100m champion Noah Lyles with an African Record of 19.46 – a time that moved him to fifth on the world all-time list.
Drafted in to run the 4x400m, Tebogo ran the second fastest split in history anchoring Botswana to Silver with a remarkable 43.03, ultimately bringing them through in a time of 2:54.53 – a new African Record, which took them up to second on the all-time list.
From there on with little to no training, he racked up four victories on the Diamond League circuit and placed 2nd in the 200m final in Brussels.
3. Ryan Crouser
Ryan Crouser is the greatest athlete to ever walk a shot put ring. So far, nothing has been able to keep him off the path to glory in Athletics.
Last year, before he left for the World Championships in Budapest, a medical exam uncovered two blood clots in Crouser’s legs, prompting him to take blood thinners to reduce the risk of complications while competing. He would go on to win his second world title, breaking the Championship Record (CR) with a 23.51m in the process.
In his season opener in February, Crouser won his fourth national indoor title in Albuquerque, with a mark of 22.80m, which qualified him for the World Athletics Indoor Championship, where he won his first World Indoor Championship with a mark of 22.77m. His throw was 70cm farther than the second-place finisher, Tom Walsh.
On his way to winning the World Indoor title, he had injured his elbow and a month after, tore his pectoral muscle. He underwent a procedure to adjust his elbow in April and to get back in shape for the rest of the year.
Despite the odds heavily stacked against him, he opened up his outdoor season at the US Olympic Trials in June and defeated the entire field. Looking much slower and less snappier, Crouser won his seventh national title in the shot put, earning another berth to the Olympic Games.
At the Olympic Games in Paris, Crouser won the Shot Put, becoming the first athlete to win GOLD medals in the event at three consecutive Games, throwing 22.90m to secure the sixth senior crown of his career.
He competed afterwards on the Diamond League circuit, winning a few meets where he improved on his Season’s Best (SB) to 22.93m and eventually finished 2nd at the Diamond League final in Brussels.
2. Jakob Ingebrigtsen
Jakob Ingebrigtsen began his 2024 campaign with a strategic focus on the European Championships in Rome and the Summer Olympic Games in Paris. He skipped the indoor season, including the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, due to an Achilles injury.
His first race of the year was at the Prefontaine Classic’s Bowerman Mile, where he immediately went up against the heavy hitters, Josh Kerr and Yared Nuguse. The event, dubbed the “Mile Race of the Century,” featured a historically deep field and was highly anticipated as a pre-Olympic showdown between Ingebrigtsen and Kerr. In a thrilling race, Kerr triumphed with a new British Record of 3:45.34, while Ingebrigtsen placed 2nd in 3:45.60.
Ingebrigtsen returned to winning form at the Oslo Diamond League, claiming victory in the 1500m with a dramatic dive at the finish line, clocking 3:29.74 to edge Timothy Cheruiyot by just three hundredths of a second. This time was the fastest in the world for the 1500m at that point in the season.
At the European Championships later that month, he dominated both the 1500m (3:31.95) and 5000m (13:20.11), adding two more GOLD medals to his collection and raising the total to a staggering 11.
In his final race before the Paris Olympics, Ingebrigtsen shattered his own European Record in the 1500m at the Monaco Diamond League, running 3:26.73. With this time, he became the fourth man in history to break the 3:27 barrier. Only Asbel Kiprop (3:26.69), Bernard Lagat (3:26.34), and Hicham El Guerrouj, the World Record (WR) holder (3:26.00), had ever run faster.
He competed in the highly anticipated Olympic men’s 1500m final in Paris, leading at a fast pace for most of the race and unexpectedly fading to fourth on the home straight. Despite the disappointment in the 1500m, Ingebrigtsen rebounded with a stunning performance in the 5000m on August 10, winning GOLD with a time of 13:13.66. In a race that started slowly but evolved into a dramatic sprint finish, Ingebrigtsen clocked a blistering 53.2s for the final lap to secure his second Olympic title.
With his Tokyo 2020 win in the 1500m and Paris 2024 Gold in the 5000m, Ingebrigtsen joined the elite company of Paavo Nurmi and Hicham El Guerrouj as the only men to win Olympic GOLD in both events. Nurmi achieved the feat in 1924, and El Guerrouj accomplished it in 2004.
Ingebrigtsen capped his 2024 season with a historic performance at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Poland, on August 25. He shattered the 3000m World Record (WR), clocking 7:17.55 to break Daniel Komen’s 1996 mark of 7:20.67. The 28-year-old record stood as the longest-standing men’s track WR, with no athlete coming within two seconds of it before Ingebrigtsen’s effort. Based on World Athletics scores alone, it ranks as the second highest WR after Kevin Kiptum’s marathon WR.
He went to win the 1500m Diamond League final, his fourth trophy, beating the Olympic Champion and made his half marathon debut a day after in Copenhagen.
1. Armand Duplantis
Mondo Duplantis’ dominance in pole vaulting has drawn comparisons to legends like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Simone Biles. His supremacy is underscored by his ability to outclass peers by nearly a foot—a staggering margin in a sport where centimeters often determine medals. Since his last defeat at the Monaco Diamond League in July 2023, the Swede has maintained an unmatched winning streak.
At the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March, Duplantis claimed GOLD with a vault of 6.05m, defending his win from 2022 successfully.
He opened up the 2024 Diamond League season in style, improving his World Record (WR) to 6.24m in April at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting in China. Later in June, he secured victory at the European Championships in Rome, bringing his consecutive wins at the event to three. He had first won the title as a teenager and this time, he set a new Championship Record (CR) of 6.10m, bringing his 6m-plus clearances to 60, well past Sergey Bubka’s 44.
At the Paris Olympics, Duplantis successfully defended his Olympic title with a jump of 6.00m, breaking the Olympic Record (OR) with a subsequent 6.10m clearance. He further pushed the boundaries of the sport, raising the bar to a new WR of 6.25m. With this performance, Duplantis became the first back-to-back Olympic champion in men’s Pole Vault since Bob Richards in 1956. He joined Richards as one of only two men in history to achieve multiple Olympic GOLDS in the event.
Notably, he has rewritten the WR three times while winning global titles, including a 6.20m clearance at the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, 6.21m at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, and 6.25m at the Paris Olympics in 2024. These achievements further solidify his legacy as one of Track and Fields’ all-time greats.
That wasn’t the end for Duplantis in 2024. At the Silesia Diamond League, it was announced that the highest ranked athlete, judged by World Athletics scores, would win a 14-carat gold and diamond signet ring. He went on to win his fourth consecutive Diamond League trophy in Brussels.
