Carl Lewis
Allyson Felix
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Allyson Felix leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Carl Lewis at #2 and Allyson Felix at #11.
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The case for Carl Lewis
Voted Sportsman of the Century by the IOC, Lewis bridged sprinting and jumping like no one before or since. He won nine Olympic golds across four Games from 1984 to 1996, including the long jump at all four — a twelve-year reign in a single event — plus the 100m, 200m and sprint relays. His long-jump dominance was almost absurd: he went unbeaten in the event for a decade, winning 65 consecutive competitions between 1981 and 1991 before Mike Powell finally beat him with a world record. He added eight World Championship golds and a 100m world record of 9.86 in 1991. The knock on Lewis is that many of his sprint titles came in a doping-riddled era and that he never broke the long-jump world record himself, but his combination of range, longevity and championship temperament — he rarely lost when a medal was on the line — puts him second on nearly every serious list.
The case for Allyson Felix
Felix retired as the most decorated athlete in World Championships history — 20 medals, 14 of them gold — and the most decorated American in Olympic track and field, with 11 Olympic medals including seven golds across five Games from 2004 to 2020. A 200m and 400m specialist who became the sport's greatest relay weapon, she anchored and split for US teams that seemed unbeatable, while also winning individual world titles at both distances. Her longevity was extraordinary: she medalled at global championships in three different decades. Off the track she became an equally important figure, publicly challenging her sponsor over maternity protections after a dangerous pregnancy in 2018 and helping force change across the industry. Judged on sustained excellence and sheer accumulation of championship medals, no woman in the sport's history collected more, and few did so while reshaping its business as profoundly.