Below are FloTrack's breakthrough athletes of 2019:

5. Tajay Gayle

The 23-year-old Jamaican improved his long jump PB by nearly a foot and a quarter-- from 8.32m to 8.69m-- in his gold medal leap at the 2019 World Championships. Gayle, the first Jamaican to win a long jump world title, entered the competition in Doha with the ninth-best PB in the field and left as the 10th best jumper in history.

Jamaican record AND longest wind-legal jump in the world for the last ten years...Tajay Gayle’s 8.69m is ridiculous.

pic.twitter.com/0spWleX1pY

— FloTrack (@FloTrack) September 28, 2019

4. Donavan Brazier

The 22-year-old had struggled in his two previous appearances at major championships, but that didn’t faze Brazier in 2019 as he set the American and championship record of 1:42.34 in winning the United States’ first 800m world title. With an aggressive move at 300m to go that highlighted his booming confidence, Brazier broke Johnny Gray’s 1:42.60 U.S. record that had stood for 34 years.

Donavan Brazier has become America’s fastest 800m runner and first world champion. #WorldAtheticsChamps https://t.co/ry1tUthgQl

— FloTrack (@FloTrack) October 2, 2019

3. Joshua Cheptegei

Other than a certain Eliud Kipchoge, Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei was the best male distance runner on the planet this year as the 23-year-old won world titles in cross country and the 10,000m before breaking the road 10k world record (26:38) earlier this month.

Before this year, Cheptegei was best known for his runner-up finish to Mo Farah in the 10,000m at the 2017 IAAF World Championships and his infamous heat exhaustion collapse at that year’s cross country world championships. He atoned for both in 2019. 

Male Athlete of the Year nominee @JoshuaCheptege1:

- won world cross-country title in Aarhus
- won world 10,000m title in a world-leading 26:48.36
- won Diamond League 5000m title

Have your say - voting closes November 4th? pic.twitter.com/Ia88v5W5T2

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) October 23, 2019

2. Brigid Kosgei

Kosgei stunned the world at October’s Chicago Marathon by smashing the women’s world record by 81 seconds with her 2:14:04. Amongst the swell of Nike Vaporfly controversy that enveloped road racing in 2019, the 25-year-old Kenyan’s performance in Chicago was seen by some as a startling example of the shoe’s unfair advantage. That debate isn’t close to being settled yet, but Kosgei-- with her legendary Chicago win coupled with a victory in April’s London Marathon-- has nonetheless propelled herself into the conversation of best women’s marathoner of all-time in the span of just one season.

WOW.

Kenyan Brigid Kosgei BREAKS the women's marathon record and defends her title at the Chicago Marathon today ? pic.twitter.com/ZTeovGda77

— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) October 13, 2019

1. Sifan Hassan

Speaking of controversy, the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan had plenty of that in the wake of her career high point at the 2019 IAAF World Championships. In between her 10,000m world title-- closed off with a 3:59 last 1500m-- and her 3:51.95 1500m championship record, the 26-year-old’s coach, Alberto Salazar, was given a four-year ban for anti-doping violations. His guilt was not Hassan’s, but it certainly put a cloud over a dream season that included a 4:12.33 mile world record to go along with her first two outdoor world titles. Her 1500m-10,000m double was the first of its kind at the World Championships.

??@SifanHassan completes unprecedented 1500m / 10,000m #WorldAthleticsChamps double and obliterates championship record in 3:51.95 in a middle-distance final for the ages.

?: https://t.co/Got12CIHbC pic.twitter.com/Uw31zyoXGZ

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) October 5, 2019