Discussion

The aim of this study was to determine the identity of the running GOAT by analyzing historical performance data of running events, which included the allocation of OG and WC medals and setting of WRs. As of March 2026, the male GOAT was Bolt, with a score of 1425, who won medals over 100 m and 200 m and achieved both the highest OG and highest WC scores. Bolt’s overall score for WRs was the fifth highest, although no athlete ranked above him is still a WR holder, and therefore his overall lead could increase over time. Nurmi’s results are worth noting as he placed fifth overall solely on the basis of OG and WR points and did not have the opportunity to compete in WC events; although we did include his OG cross-country medals, the sensitivity analysis showed that he would still have ranked fifth without these, highlighting his exceptionalism. Kipyegon was the GOAT amongst women, with a score of 1009 that would place her fourth on a combined table of men and women (incidentally, a combined top-25 GOAT table would comprise 11 men and 14 women). The dominance of Bolt in the men’s top 25 across the three major accomplishments (OG, WC, and WRs) was not reflected to the same extent amongst women: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was the highest scorer for the WC, with Kazankina the highest ranked for total WR score. Elaine Thompson-Herah had the highest OG score but, with no WR score, ranked only 25th. Interestingly, Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100-m WR from 1988 is disputed because of debatable wind readings [13, 28]. If that particular WR had not been ratified, a slower time set by Griffith-Joyner would have been the WR, Thompson-Herah would have set a new women’s 100-m WR at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics [13], and her revised ranking would be 16th. Unlike in the men’s events, many of the longest-lasting women’s WRs were set in the 1980s, which preceded the implementation of systematic in- and out-of-competition drug testing and that could have had a larger effect on women’s performances than on men’s [29]. Indeed, it was noticeable that none of the top 16 women ranked by WR score achieved that feat, or won any medals, after 2000. This meant that ten of the top women did not score any points for WRs, whereas seven men of their top 25 did likewise, and the reduced likelihood of new WRs [30] means future athletes have a diminishing chance of becoming the GOAT. Performance-enhancing drugs have been available to some extent since at least the 1930s [31] and continue to have a large effect on performance [32]. Although there are frequently well-founded suspicions about certain athletes or performances, and athletes retain medals that were won before a doping ban, we included all performances that are currently accepted as legal. We recognize that this means that some medalists and WR holders will have benefitted from undetected doping. Future (legal) improvements in performance are likely to result from better understanding of sport-specific demands, improved competition execution, more specific and precise training load prescriptions, improved quality of training, and more professional and healthier lifestyles [33].

The capacity to accumulate medals is enhanced by the ability to “double up” in more than one event. For example, the determination of Bolt’s position as the male GOAT was facilitated by his three Olympic and three WC 100-m/200-m doubles. Similarly, Fraser-Pryce’s ranking of third on the female GOAT list was aided by winning medals at both 100 m and 200 m. It was similarly notable that, over the longer track distances, amongst the top three men and women, Bekele, Gebrselassie, and Dibaba all won medals over both 5000 m and 10,000 m. These specific sprint and long-distance event pairings accounted for 36 of the 52 doubles (69%) achieved at the OG and WC since 1972 and are closer in terms of increase in WR duration and decrease in WR speed (from the shorter to the longer distance) than any other double (Table 7), showing that they were the most closely matched in terms of physiological demands. In addition, Kipyegon’s ranking as the female GOAT was facilitated by her ability to win medals and set WRs at both 1500 m and 5000 m and is the only woman to have completed this double at any major championships. Although the aerobic contribution to the 200 m was modeled to be twice that of the 100 m [25], these sprint events are heavily dependent on anaerobic contributions and all-out pacing [34]. Likewise, the 5000 m and 10,000 m have similar pacing profiles [34], which could explain the high number of doubles achieved [35], whereas the 10,000 m and marathon have similar aerobic contributions, but achieving the double over the two longest distances is very rare. Zátopek, at the 1952 Helsinki OG, was the only athlete to ever win both the marathon and the 10,000 m (as well as the 5000 m). Attempting doubles at major championships is not just a matter of optimal physiological or tactical characteristics; the scheduling of events, and the number of rounds run, can limit an athlete’s range (and highlight why global championship victories are a greater challenge than meet events), and qualifying in the contemporary era to compete in two events presents a considerable challenge. Indeed, Zátopek was able to achieve his unique treble in 1952 because he was already at the Games when he applied to compete in what was his first marathon only days before it was held [36]. Such an opportunity is impermissible in the contemporary era. Clearly, being on the GOAT list selects those athletes who have the combination of optimal physiological capabilities and strong mental drive required to be a World Champion, WR holder, or Olympic medal winner. Athletes who perform successfully for many years likely have a greater capacity to physically cope with the demands of long-term training and racing activity or must have a high mental “need” to achieve victory that is not assuaged by short periods of success [37]. Further qualitative or quantitative research is required to assess which factors set these GOAT athletes apart from their elite rivals who competed with some success, but not to the extent of those who made the top list, potentially for psycho-social reasons.

One element that always needs consideration when determining the GOAT is the difference in competition availability and standards over that sport’s history. We recognized that contemporary athletes have the good fortune to compete more frequently because of the presence of WC and meet events (e.g., Diamond League), ease of travel, better sport science support, and economic rewards in sport. These are some factors, amongst others, that might allow for longer careers. We also recognized that, as the size of the competitive universe has increased, one has to be relatively better to achieve an Olympic medal or WR now compared with the earliest editions of the modern OG [24]. Several factors therefore affect our overall rankings: the low participation numbers in early OG, difficulties with ratifying WRs in the absence of modern technology, the later introduction of WC, the disruption of two World Wars, and other political interference [3]. Women’s athletics events were particularly restricted in the earliest OG, held back by fabricated media stories of nonfinishers and exhausted competitors in the 1928 Olympic 800-m final, for example [38]. On a greater scale, women’s sport has been limited by social, cultural, and financial restrictions, lack of opportunity, and national gender norms [39]. From the perspective of global athletics success, women who have children during their careers are clearly affected during pregnancy, and postpartum elite athletes require time to return to training and competition [40]. Kipyegon, Fraser-Pryce, and Allyson Felix are three examples from the top 25 ranked women who had children during their competitive careers [40], and clearly this is a consideration when considering their capacity to compete successfully.

Although we did not adjust the normative points system or carry out mathematical or statistical modeling to account for the number of competing athletes, we note that participation has grown substantially since the first modern OG in 1896 (and even the first WC in 1983) and so we split the lifespan of the OG into five separate eras. In general, total points increased with the chronological progression of these eras, as more opportunities to compete and win medals appeared. Our decision to use modern day World Athletics prize money as a system for allocating points was based on its position as an external, widely understood reference for athletic achievement (especially when comparing the color of medals won and the different global competitions held) rather than as a monetary evaluation of the athletes’ performances, given that the timeframe for our study covered more than 125 years and included the amateur eras when runners such as Nurmi competed. Nurmi stands out as an exception in our consideration of the GOAT; he won Olympic medals across the 1920, 1924, and 1928 Games in the 1500 m, 3000-m steeplechase, 5000 m, 10,000 m, and cross country, as well as setting WRs at 1500 m, 5000 m and 10,000 m (the latter of which stood for 15 years). Indeed, if only OG and WR were considered, he would have been, unequivocally, determined to be the male GOAT, and even the removal in the sensitivity analysis of his XC points from the 1920 and 1924 OGs did not affect his overall fifth-place ranking.

Both men’s and women’s top 25 rankings show that several different disciplines were represented. However, those specializing in a single event, such as the steeplechase, marathon, or cross country, were less likely to appear in the overall GOAT top 25. We included the three editions of the Olympic cross-country race, even though there was a ~ 50-year gap between Olympic and WXC events, as it represents a distinct type of running. As a counterbalance to those long-distance athletes competing over the country, we included the WIC for those competing in sprints, hurdles, and middle distances. Only four men and eight women of the whole sample of 2118 athletes scored in both, showing the division between these two off-season championships. Smaller points, as reflected in the most recent prize money on offer, were awarded for these competitions given that they are typically not an athlete’s focus, but we felt they were important to incorporate given they complement the larger global championships within an all-year racing calendar and did boost several of the top 25 athletes’ overall scores, especially in the women’s rankings.

Limitations

Identifying the GOAT is difficult given the constantly changing sporting, technological, and political landscape. We restricted our analysis to running events, so those athletes who excelled in other athletics events (e.g., Lewis won four Olympic and two World Championship gold medals in the long jump) or in other sports (e.g., “Babe” Didrickson, who was the third-ranked woman in the interwar era) [41] had an even wider span than that covered in our study. One reason for allocating the athletes to different eras was to account for changes in technology, such as the first adoption of synthetic tracks and electronic timing at the 1968 OG [23]. However, we did not adjust points for these changes or the recent emergence of advanced footwear technology (“super shoes”), which have increasingly been adopted since 2016 [42], and are now one element of developing technology perhaps required to break WRs [43]. Allocating athletes to eras also allows for a better appreciation of the achievements of athletes in earlier eras when there were fewer competitive opportunities (of the type analyzed in our study), as the overall normative scoring system does not account for either the lack of opportunities in earlier eras or the increased number of nations now competing in global competition (e.g., after the breakup of states like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia). We restricted our analysis to Olympic and World Athletics competitions, as these were global events that member federations could enter qualified athletes for (rather than those competitions where participation was by invitation only). We consequently omitted performances in meet events such as the Diamond League (where distance WRs are more frequent because of pacemakers and pacing lights) [44], Area championships (e.g., European Championships), age-group competition, road races, and big-city marathons. The latter is particularly important as many runners favor participation in big-city marathons, where WRs are largely set, rather than in championships. This did mean excluding the many large-city and World Marathon Major victories of athletes such as Waitz (11 wins), Eliud Kipchoge (11 wins), and Paula Radcliffe (8 wins) and, by the same token, we also did not include victories for track athletes in present or historical major meet series, such as the IAAF Golden League. Athlete appearances in these events are typically by invitation and do not require the championship approach required to progress through qualifying rounds over a short period. Even though we did factor in WR duration, we did not consider competitive dominance in other ways, such as winning streaks. Although we have identified the GOAT in both sexes as well as categories of GOAT across eras and events using a normative points system based on current World Athletics prize money, there are always external factors that cannot be easily quantified or modeled, but which could be an interesting concept for future research. Nonetheless, the process we adopted forms a robust, quantitative starting basis on which further debate and analysis can be developed.