© Copyright – 2025 – Athletics Illustrated
Femke Bol and Armand Duplantis were honoured on Saturday at the 2025 Golden Tracks held in Batumi, Georgia.
This is the third time that the athletes have received this honour. The UK’s Mo Farah is the only other to receive the honour three times.
Femke Bol
Bol won in 2022 and 2023. Duplantis, who split the award with Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 2022, won in again in 2024.
European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov said, “Both Femke and Armand have redefined their events, and it was a privilege to watch both of them win gold in their respective events at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. To be crowned European Athlete of the Year once is a remarkable achievement, but to win this award three times is a truly historic feat.”
The 25-year-old Bol is a 400 metre hurdles specialist and competes on the Dutch relay teams; however, is moving up to the 800 metre event next.
She holds at least eight national records, one each being a World Best Known Time, world record and a European record. She is the second-fastest 400m hurdler in history with her European record of 50.95 seconds.
Bol has won two Olympic bronze, one silver and one gold medal between the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games. She also earned two bronze, three silver and three gold medals at the World Athletics Championships. They were awarded during the Tokyo, Budapest and Eugene events.
Armand Duplantis
Duplantis is the greatest pole vaulter in history. The 25-year-old Swede broke his own world record several times, and it now sits at 6.30 metres. The latest was set during the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships, where he spectacularly won the gold medal.
He owns two Olympic gold medals from Tokyo and Paris. And has won three World Athletics Championships gold medals from Eugene, Budapest and Tokyo. At 19, he won silver at the Doha World Athletics Championships. He has soared uncontested since.
Duplantis’s name appears for all 12 of the 12-highest vaults in history, record as the top-10, as he equalled his former world record of 6.15m three different times. His name appears 24 times for the top-22 heights, tying several benchmarks multiple times. He first bettered former world record holder Sergey Bubka from Ukraine in 2020 at 6.15m to Bubka’s 6.13m and has never looked back, or perhaps down.
