Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Allyson Felix
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Allyson Felix leads 3 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Jackie Joyner-Kersee at #8 and Allyson Felix at #11.
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The case for Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Widely called the greatest female athlete of the twentieth century, Joyner-Kersee dominated the most demanding event in the sport. Her heptathlon world record of 7,291 points, set at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, still stands nearly four decades later and remains one of the most durable marks in athletics. She won three Olympic golds — heptathlon in 1988 and 1992, long jump in 1988 — plus a silver and two bronzes across four Games, and added four World Championship titles. She was simultaneously a world-class long jumper, with a best of 7.49m that ranks among the finest ever, and a sub-13-second hurdler, a range of abilities almost no one else has combined. Battling asthma throughout her career, she set the standard for the multi-event athlete: fast enough to sprint, strong enough to throw, springy enough to jump, and tough enough to do all seven over two exhausting days.
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.