What is the best athletics performance ever?

Typically, when discussing such a topic, one would think the answers would be purely subjective. Those who prefer sprints might say one of Usain Bolt’s world records, one partial to throws might say Ryan Crouser’s shot put record, and one who loves jumps may say Javier Sotomayor’s increasingly ancient high jump record. Thankfully, although not foolproof nor definitive, the governing body of athletics has given us a way to somewhat quantity and compare these performances. This is known as the “results score”. It is very complicated and layered, so instead of trying and ultimately failing to concisely define and explain it, I will let its creators do so: 

“The Scoring Tables of Athletics are based on exact statistical data and according to the following principles:
The scores in the tables of different events cover equivalent performances. Therefore, the tables can be used to compare results achieved in different athletic events.

Due to obvious biological differences, it is not proposed to fully compare men’s and women’s performances. Thus, the system contains scoring tables for men’s and women’s events respectively.

The tables are progressive, which means that the same improvement of results at higher levels leads to a greater increase in the scores. For example, to improve from 8.30m to 8.60m in the Long Jump is obviously more difficult than to improve from 6.30m to 6.60m. The degree of progressivity in the running (walking, hurdling) events is different than in the jumping and in the throwing events due to biomechanical reasons.

While these tables can never be a definitive measurement of the level of performance considering the differing opinions among sports statisticians concerning their basis and method of construction, they do allow us to consistently measure and compare athletes and their performances across the rich variety of event disciplines.”

– Excerpt taken from IAAF SCORING TABLES OF ATHLETICS (2017 REVISED EDITION) by Dr Bojidar Spiriev (Updated by Attila Spiriev)

Basically, while accounting for differences in gender and also level of performance, these scores give us the best way to compare across all the various athletics disciplines.

I will be doing a top 10, with a couple honourable mentions. Key: M- Male, F-Female

10th) Armand Duplantis– M, Pole vault, 6.24m. 1333 results score. 20-April 2024.

Actually a joint 9th on this list as the next entrant has the same score but is an older record. In fact, this is the newest record on this list, and will probably not last very long with the exceptional rate at which ‘mondo’, as he is affectionately known, breaks his own world record. It seems at least once or twice a season, since his only true competitor is himself, that mondo rises his own world record even higher. In fact, his previous world record from last year would have seen him just outside the all top 10 score list at 12th. Who knows how far up this list the swede will rise?

9th) Galina Christyakova– F, Long jump, 7.52m. 1333 results score. 11 June 1988.

This starts a trend with the other female world records on this list, which is that they are each approaching 40 years old. The closest person to this record since 2004 was the USA’s Britney Reese in 2016 with a 7.31m mark, and makes her the joint 9th farthest jumper of all time. Right behind her is the farthest jumper still competing, Malaika Mihambo of Germany with a 7.30m, recorded when she won the world title in 2019. She recently passed 7.20m to win the European title and is a favorite to win the Olympic title later this year, but unless dealing in the realms of miracles, don’t expect this record’s extended stay in the books to end soon.

8th) Ryan Crouser– M, Shot put, 23.56m. 1334 results score. 27 May 2023.

Ryan Crouser broke one of the oldest records in the sport, when the American threw the shot out to 23.37m in June 2021. He has since improved on this distance twice, and along with countryman Joe Kovacs and new European champion Leonardo Fabbri of Italy, he is leading a new generation of putters that are re-writing the record books, which were in dire need of change. The previous world record was set all the way back in 1990, by Randy Barnes. It seemed other worldly at the time, and for decades, men could only barely get within a meter. It is perhaps telling that Barnes was eventually banned for life for cheating, in 1998, after also being caught in 1990, but his record was somehow allowed to stand. 

7th) Karsten Warholm– M, 400m hurdles, 45.94s. 1341 results score, 3 August 2021.

This is one of the few times when watching track that my jaw actually dropped. It is also one of the main reasons that this idea popped into my head, as I thought surely this must be at least top 3 performances of all time? Alas, it is “just” 7th, which shows how phenomenal this list is. Like many on this list, it shows a stratosphere of their discipline that either has never been reached before, or one that no one else has been able to reach since. This is the former.  The world record for the event by Kevin Young stood at 46.78 seconds from 1992 for nearly 30 years, when someone else finally broke the elusive 47s barrier, as Abderrahman Samba ran a 46.98 in 2018. The World record itself stood till July 2021, when Warholm broke it with a 46.70. With a record so old, surely this was the peak of athletes In this event for the time being? Well, just over a month later, the three medalists from the 2021 Olympic games ALL broke the former WR, with bronze medalist Alisson Dos Santos running 46.72. Rai Benjamin somehow didn’t win while producing a 46.17 clocking, as the Norwegian somehow broke the 46 second barrier, when breaking 47 seemed to be the stuff of dreams. Since then, the 3 men have all run sub 47 several times, meaning we may see even more greatness at the Olympics this year.

6th) Mike Powell-M, Long jump, 8.95m, 1346 results score. 30 August 1991.

With the men’s discus world record finally falling this year, this is the second oldest male world record in the books, only trailing Yuriy Sedykh’s hammer throw record from 1986, which somewhat surprisingly was nowhere close to making this list. Powell’s jump in fact had broken another extremely long standing world record, and one of the most astonishing, Bob Beamon’s 8.90 jump from Mexico 1968. Due to these two otherworldly ‘Skywalker’ like jumps, this event has arguably been the hardest to set a world record in, with 2 in 56 years. In fact, the only jumper to crack the top 10 all time list in this discipline is the man in joint 10th, Dwight Phillips, who jumped 8.74m in 2009. This is still some way off the world record, and every other man who has jumped farther did so in the 1990s or earlier. Meaning again this record will probably stand for some time yet. Greek, Miltiadis Tentoglou, who just won the European title with a lifetime best jump of 8.65m, and 2019 world champion Tajay Gayle of Jamaica who won with a 8.69 effort, are the men still competing with the closest personal bests.

5th) Usain Bolt-M, 200m, 19.19s, 1352 results score. 20 August 2009.

The first of Bolt’s mercurial records to make this list. With Noah Lyles coming somewhat close in 2022, and Yohan Blake coming even closer more than a decade prior to that, perhaps we have been a little spoiled. Perhaps people have forgotten just how utterly ridiculous this record is, and this is the ‘lesser’ of his two individual records. The 200m is arguably in an extended golden era, starting from Bolt’s emergence till now, with the once elite standard sub 20s barrier looking more like sub 19.9s with so many men, especially Americans running such times. In fact as many as 5 men seem capable of running 19.6s or better, and perhaps a further 3-5 of running 19.7s of better. When Bolt was breaking records, usually it took a 19.7s-19.9s to finish on the podium behind him. No one then or now would have beaten Bolt, but maybe some of these current runners would have pushed him to even greater 200m heights?

4th) Usain Bolt-M, 100m, 9.58s, 1356 results score, 16 August 2009.

Just 4 days earlier, Bolt did something even more astonishing, producing the only 100m race ever run in under 9.6s. The fact that Tyson Gay, the runner up ran 9.71s which was the fastest non Bolt performance ever at the time and the third fastest overall, wasn’t even close, shows just how dominant he was. If the 200m is in an extended golden era, the men’s 100m golden era ended with the retirement of bolt et-Al. We were spoiled with multiple sub 9.80 clockings a year by multiple athletes, and yet since the 2020s, only three men have run below this barrier, the fastest being 9.76. Of these, only Fred Kerley has broken that barrier more than once. The world fastest man this year, Oblique Seville of Jamaica, ran a 9.82s while slowing down at the end, giving hope that just maybe we can see the return of 9.7s sprinting at the Olympics this year.

3rd) Jan Zelezny-M, Javelin, 98.48m, 1365 results score, 25 May, 1996.

This record is approaching “rewrite the rules” territory, as the end of the field for the javelins to land in is not much longer than this, meaning if men consistently start throwing further then spectators could be in danger. Thankfully, for some at least, usually the best throwers end up between 80-89m at any competition, with a few rare throws surpassing the 90m mark. In fact , in 1984, East Germany’s Uwe Hohn threw the javelin to a ridiculous 104.80m, which, while not the chief reason, it again being so close to becoming a hazard accelerated plans to change the javelin’s specs, and thus with a new type of javelin being thrown the records books had to be rewritten. For decades, Zelezny’s throws were out on their own, some 5m ahead of the nearest competitor with this new javelin. However, Johannes Vetter of Germany has come within a meter of the Czech, and has 4 of the top 10 throws of all time, while Zelezny has 5. Sadly, Vetter has had injury issues of late and hasn’t competed since 2021, which was a year after he threw 97.76m. He is on the comeback trail however, and hopefully we see the 31 year old and 2017 world champion at the Olympics later this year.

2nd) Natalya Lisovskaya-F, Shot Put, 22.63m, 1372 results score, 7 June 1987.

As mentioned earlier, this record is another woman’s field world record that is approaching its’ 40th birthday, and that doesn’t seem like changing any time soon. In fact, since 2000, the farthest throw by a woman was by the near unbeatable during her career, Valerie Adams, who threw nearly a meter and a half less to win the world title in 2011 with 21.24m. This ranks her only as the 23rd best woman of all time, and the women above the New Zealander are all from China, or Eastern Europe, and mostly competed in the 1980s, pointing to a dubious time in women’s athletics. Chase Ealy, the current world champion and herself, becoming somewhat unbeatable like Adams was, is the closest woman to this record who is currently competing and is a near two meters down on it, having thrown 20.76m in 2023. She ranks 40th all time.

1st) Gabriele Reinsch -F, Discus, 76.80m, 1382 results score, 9 July, 1988.

The best athletics performance of all time, is this monster throw by the East German in 1988. It is such a phenomenal throw, that it is more than 2 meters further than the next best performer, who threw the previous world record of 74.56m 4 years earlier. In some ways however, this record seems more approachable than the shot put one, as just in April of this year, Cuba’s Yaime Perez threw a 73.09m distance. This throw was awesome in itself, as it yielded a results score of 1313, and anything over 1300 is usually in world record territory of any event. This puts her 9th all time, much closer than Ealy’s 40th in the shot put. Alas, on the other hand she is nearly 4 meters down on the world record, so again this record may stand for another 30 plus years yet.

Honourable mentions: Jackie Joyner-Kersee-F, heptathlon, 7291 points, results score 1331. 24 September 1988.

Mykolas Alekna-M, discus, 74.35m, results score 1325. 14 April 2024.

Wayde Van Niekerk-M, 400m, 43.03s, results score 1321. 14 August 2016.

Team Jamaica-M, 4x100m relay, 36.84s, results score 1318. 11 August 2012.

These were the 4 next best results scores, and in fact, Joyner-Kersee was only recently bumped out of the top 10 by Duplantis. I would have stopped at the next 3, but coincidentally the next in line was the relay, and as it stands as the greatest team performance ever, I think it deserves a shout out. (Yes, this is another Usain Bolt record as well).

I find it fascinating that some records I thought were other-worldly barely make the top 10, such as Warholm’s 400m hurdles record. Others, such as the women’s 100m hurdles of 12.12s world record by Tobi Amusan is the third ‘worst’ world record, with a results score of ‘just’ 1272. In fact, the lowest ranked world record is one of the oldest, as the women’s 4x400m relay world record of 3:15.17s by the Soviet Union only has a results score of 1267 and has stood from October 1st, 1988. When Amusan broke the world at the 2022 World championships, there was audible shock around the stadium, and even the commentators figured it was a clock malfunction initially. A world class time for the 100m hurdles is sub 12.50s, and usually 12.3s-12.4s is enough to earn a global medal. Only in 2016 was a 28 year old world record in this event broken, (12.20s from 12.21s) showing that even those times are exceedingly rare. Another one is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s 50.68s clocking in the women’s 400m hurdles. For years, the world record was 52.34s, so breaking 52 seconds was seen as mythical, much less 51 seconds. Despite this, it only netted the American a results score of 1312. It begs the question, are some events just ‘behind’ others?  Maybe people are better at running the men’s 200m than the women’s 100m hurdles for example, or maybe those events have seen their golden eras already and some have yet to, or are just starting, (women’s 400m and 400m hurdles I’m looking at you). Maybe further still, due to the women’s performances especially in the 1980s which are heavily suspected to be doping aided, the women’s results scores in several events are skewed, and phenomenal performances by female athletes are seen as just ‘very good’ as a result. McLaughlin-Levrone’s time for example would be somewhere between 9.69s and 9.71s (3rd and 4th fastest times ever) for the men’s 100m (1316 vs 1308 results score). Perhaps Bolt was just such a phenomenon that his 13.56 score 9.58s performance skewed the perception of this event? Another example, the top performance on this list, the women’s world record in the discus, has an equivalent results score to a 9.50-9.51s clocking in the men’s 100m, showing just how insane that record is, as that time would be a meter or so ahead of Bolt at his best. The ‘worst’ world record by the way, is equivalent to about a 9.83s clocking in the men’s 100m. That is still a very fast time, but only good for the 64th best performance of all time, and we have seen a time that fast or quicker going back every year for well over a decade. It is probably unfair to suggest that some events have more quality or are of a slightly higher standard than others, so this scoring system is still not perfect. However, many would agree that currently, the men’s 400m hurdles upper end talent is of a higher quality than the men’s 100m at the moment for example, so maybe some events indeed do need to ‘catch up’. All explanations listed are possibilities, and there may be even better explanations that I have thought of here.