Four years ago as 19-year-olds both won the Rising Star Awards; both rose and shone gloriously in 2022.

Duplantis, despite only just turning 23, now has more six-metre clearances than any other pole vaulter in history.

His record-breaking 2022 campaign began with an undefeated indoor season, during which he raised his own world record to 6.19 metres in Belgrade.

He returned to the Serbian capital two weeks later for the World Athletics Indoor Championships, where he won with another world record, 6.20m.

He was then victorious on the Diamond League circuit, including a 6.16m vault in Stockholm, the highest-ever outdoor vault in history.

As the last athlete competing on the final day of competition at the World Championships in Oregon, Duplantis soared to another world record of 6.21m with room to spare.

Less than a month later, he retained his European title with a championship record of 6.06m in a competition where he registered no misses.

He then won the Diamond League final in Zurich.

"Going into the year, I had really high expectations of myself and I had some really big goals," Duplantis told World Athletics.

"I wanted to win the world indoors, the world outdoors, the Europeans, the Diamond League final, and I wanted to break the world record a few times.

"I was able to do that and it was a bonus, the cherry on top, to do be able to do it [break the world record] at the right times, to do it at world indoors and do it at world outdoors.

"I can’t complain."

Duplantis' victory denied Kenya's 38-year-old marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge a hat-trick of titles after his awards in 2018 and 2019.

Kipchoge lowered his own official world record by 30 seconds in winning a fourth Berlin Marathon title in 2 hours 1min 9sec.

Noah Lyles of the US broke Michael Johnson's national 200 metres record of 19.32sec - then a world record at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics - in winning world gold in Eugene, moving to third on the all-time list.

Norway’s 22-year-old Olympic 1500m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen had a relatively disappointing time as he was beaten to the world indoor and outdoor titles, taking silver, but he finally secured a world gold in the 5,000m and won the Diamond League title in a 2022 world-leading 3min 29.02sec.

Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali was unbeaten in the 3,000m steeplechase this season, which he opened with a 2022 world lead of 7:58.28 in Rabat before winning his first world title and adding the Diamond League title.

McLaughlin-Levrone's award came after a season in which she first broke her own world 400m hurdles record of 51.46sec - set in winning the Tokyo 2020 Olympic title - as she won the US World Championship trials in 51.41.

Less than a month later she returned to the same track in Eugene for the 2022 World Athletics Championships and not so much broke her world record again as shattered it, coming home in an astonishing 50.68, leaving the hugely accomplished young Dutch athlete Femke Bol, the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist, trailing halfway down the straight.

Having set the world record for her first time in winning the Olympic trials in 51.90, this 23-year-old from New Jersey now has the last four world marks to her name.

She added a second gold on the final day of the Oregon 2022 World Championships as part of the women's 4x400m relay team.

"All of my goals were accomplished this year," said McLaughlin-Levrone.

"We were able to accomplish everything we set out to do.

"It couldn't have been any better, and I was so grateful that I was able to produce that performance in front of a home crowd."

It had to be an extraordinary performance to prevent Venezuela’s dynamic triple jumper Yulimar Rojas adding a second title to the one she won in 2020.

Rojas had another stupendous season as she won world indoor and outdoor titles and added the Diamond League title.

In winning the world indoor title in Belgrade she beat the world record of 15.67 metres she had set in winning the previous year's Olympic title in Tokyo as she recorded 15.74m.

Earlier in the year she had warmed up by setting a national record of 6.81m in her second event of the long jump.

Nine years after winning this award, Jamaica's stellar sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was again in the running aged 35 having won a fifth world 100 metres title 13 years after her first in a championship record of 10.67sec.

She also ran the fastest time of the season, 10.62, which was just 0.02 off her personal best.

Also in the frame for the award were Nigeria's US-based Tobi Amusan, who reduced the 100m hurdles world record to 12.12sec en route to winning the world title in Eugene.

The fifth shortlisted athlete was race walker Kimberly Garcia, who earned Peru's first World Athletics Championship medal when she won the women’s 20 kilometres race and then completed the double with a South American record in the 35km race.

Earlier in the evening Erriyon Knighton, 18, became the first athlete to win the Rising Star Award twice as his performance in earning world 200 metres bronze at this year's home World Championships in Eugene was honoured.

On April 30 this year Knighton clocked 19.49sec in Baton Rouge, then putting him fourth on the all-time list behind fellow American Johnson, the former world record-holder on 19.32, and two Jamaicans-– Yohan Blake, who clocked 19.26 in 2011, and Usain Bolt, whose 2009 world record stands at 19.19.

Since then Knighton has moved down to fifth following the 19.31 US record run by Lyles to win the world title in Eugene.

In 2021 Knighton missed out on an Olympic 200m medal by one place.

"Winning this award back-to-back means my talent is getting recognised on a bigger stage," Knighton said.

The other nominees were France’s Anthony Ammirati, the world under-20 pole vault champion who produced the six best performances of the year, Jaydon Hibbert of Jamaica, the world under-20 triple jump champion, Botswana’s Letsile Tobogo, who won the world under-20 100m title and set a world under-20 100m record of 9.91, and Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi, who placed fourth in the world 800m final.

The women's Rising Star award went to 18-year-old Adriana Vilagos of Serbia, who successfully defended her world under-20 javelin title in Cali with a championship record of 63.52 metres and earned silver at the Munich 2022 European Championships with an effort of 62.01m.

The other women’s Rising Star nominees were Jackline Chepkoech of Kenya, won won the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth 3,000 metres steeplechase title, her compatriot Faith Cherotich, who won the world under-20 3,000m steeplechase title, Mine De Klerk of South Africa, who won shot put gold and discus bronze at the World Under-20 Championships, and Kerrica Hill of Jamaica, who was world under-20 100m hurdles champion and 4x100m champion.