25 to watch in 2025 sporting world

Fans will have plenty to look forward to in the new year with young guns eyeing sporting greatness and established stars hoping to add to their legacies.

The Straits Times lists the athletes and teams to keep an eye on over the next 12 months.

1. Shanti Pereira (Sgp) Age: 28

Athletics

After a stress injury that

saw her miss out on her Paris 2024 200m semi-final target,

Singapore’s fastest woman will be fired up for 2025 with the Sept 13-21 world championships and Dec 9-20 SEA Games on the horizon. She will be aiming to get back on track after a 2023 season that saw her claiming 100m and 200m crowns at the SEA Games and Asian Championships, and

a gold and silver at the Asian Games.

2. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA) 25

Athletics

The American has shown no sign of slowing down after blitzing to the 400m hurdles gold at the Paris Olympics and setting a world record in the event for the sixth time. Still just 25, she will be one to watch at the world championships, Diamond League and the Grand Slam Track, a new global league by American sprint great Michael Johnson.

3. Gout Gout (Aus) 17

Athletics

Born in Queensland to South Sudan immigrants, the teenage sprinter won the 200m at Australia’s national schools championships in 20.04sec to become the fastest 16-year-old half-lap runner of all time. In the process, he eclipsed Jamaican legend Usain Bolt’s record of 20.13sec at the same age. Expect 2025 to be a speedy year for Gout, who boasts a personal best of 10.17 seconds in the 100m.

4. Yeo Jia Min (Sgp) 25

Badminton

Yeo had a markedly improved 2024 season, reaching a career-high world No. 13 ranking in November, on the back of her better endurance. She has been consistently reaching the quarter-finals after the Paris Olympics, having beaten several top-10 players. There is hope that new badminton women’s singles coach Kim Ji-hyun can help her translate that into titles in 2025.

5. Tomoka Miyazaki (Jpn) 18

Badminton

The latest in Japan’s conveyor belt of wunderkinds, the 18-year-old finished in the top four in half of the 16 BWF World Tour events she competed in 2024, and won the Orleans Masters as she surged from 39th to 12th in the world rankings. If she keeps up this trajectory, she will turn out to be top-ranked An Se-young’s biggest threat as the next Olympic cycle begins.

6. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (USA) 26

Basketball

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Gilgeous-Alexander has led the way in scoring in the 2024-25 season so far with 960 points in 31 games. His performances have helped position the Thunder as one of the top seeds in the West and he has shown consistently that he is a bona fide contender for the Most Valuable Player award.

7. Tadej Pogacar (Slo) 26

Cycling

The Slovenian had a stunning 2024 season after clinching the triple crown of cycling – Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and world championships road race. With 24 race victories in the year, he is second on the all-time list, just behind Freddy Maertens’ 34 wins at the highest level. Will he be able to better that in 2025 and seal his status as one of the greatest of all time?

8. Biniam Girmay (Eri) 24

Cycling

Hailing from east African country Eritrea, Girmay shone at the 2024 Tour de France, where he became the first black African to win a stage and the first African to win the green jersey for best points classification. With the Sept 21-28 road world championships taking place in Rwanda – the first time that it will be held in Africa – the hopes of a continent are on his shoulders and he would not want to disappoint.

9. Paul Lim (Sgp) 70

Darts

At 70, this senior citizen is still cranking up the pressure on the best darts players in the world, showing no signs of slowing down as he finished second in the 2024 World Darts Championship. The grandfather of three will play in the Japan electronic darts professional tour as well as the PDC Asian steel-tip circuit in 2025 and eyes another youth-slaying run in the world championships.

10. Singapore women’s team

Floorball

They are three-time SEA Games defending champions and came close to bettering their 12th-place world championships finish in 2019 with a similar performance on home ground in 2023. Under new coach Tan Yi Ru, 2025 feels set for breaking new frontiers. At the heart of this journey will be technical playmaker Siti Nurhaliza Khairul Anuar, who led the team with 15 goal involvements in the last two SEA Games campaigns.

11. Estevao Willian (Bra) 17

Football

The wunderkind has been hailed as the next big thing from Brazil, after breaking Neymar’s record for most goal contributions by an Under-17 player in the country’s top flight. The Palmeiras winger has already been snapped up by Chelsea and will join the Blues in July. But before that, he is set to justify his £56 million (S$95.4 million) price tag at the June 15-July 13 Club World Cup in the United States.

12. Salma Paralluelo (Esp) 21

Football

Paralluelo is seen as the heir apparent to two-time Ballon d’Or Feminin winner Aitana Bonmati for world champions Spain. Football’s gain is athletics’ loss as her former coach Felix Laguna boldly predicted that she would have been an Olympic track medallist had she chosen her running spikes instead. Expect opponents to be chasing shadows when she lines up in Spain’s attack at the July 2-27 Women’s Euro 2025.

13. Danelle Tan (Sgp) 20

Football

Singapore’s top female striker will be itching to make an impact after injury and surgery caused her to miss the opening A-League Women matches for new club Brisbane Roar. She also had to sit out the national side’s successful qualifying campaign for the Asean Women’s Championship and will be keen to make up for her absence by doing well at the tournament and the Dec 9-20 SEA Games.

14. Singapore men’s team

Football

Singapore have never qualified for the Asian Cup Finals on merit, and played in the final competition only once in 1984 as hosts. Can Tsutomu Ogura’s Lions make 2025 a year to remember by finally sealing the deal? The Lions will fancy their chances especially after being grouped with India, Hong Kong and Bangladesh for the third round of the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers from March 25, 2025 to March 31, 2026.

15. Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) 39

Formula One

The spotlight will be on the Briton, who is aiming to reignite his Formula One career in the red of Ferrari after 12 years at Mercedes. With the Italian outfit showing competitive race pace again, the 39-year-old seven-time world champion can dispel the notion that he is a fading force and finally claim that elusive eighth crown.

16. Ludvig Aberg (Swe) 25

Golf

The Swede finished as the runner-up at the 2024 Masters and is on track to win his first Major, if he can overcome injury. He was tied for 12th at the US Open, and missed the cut at the other two Majors – while he was suffering a knee issue which needed surgery. The spotlight will be on how he recovers from that in his bid to become the next big star in golf.

17. Hiroshi Tai (Sgp) 22

Golf

It will be an exciting year for Tai, who was the first Singaporean and Asian to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) golf championship. After making his Major bow at the US Open, he is set to step on another of golf’s hallowed grounds when he plays at Augusta during the Masters from April 10 to 13.

18. Caelan Doris (Irl) 26

Rugby

The Ireland captain was the only non-South African nominee for World Rugby’s Player of the Year 2024 gong, highlighting the No. 8’s status as one of the best players in the Northern Hemisphere. He could taste success this summer with the British and Irish Lions, who have a good chance of a first series win since 2013 in Australia, as the Wallabies are still in a rebuilding phase.

19. Kareena Sashikumar (Sgp) 10

Squash

It will be interesting to see if Kareena can continue her upward trajectory, having racked up six titles on the 2024 Asian Junior Super Series as a member of the latest batch of talent to emerge from the Singapore squash scene.

20. Yip Pin Xiu (Sgp) 32

Swimming

Singapore’s seven-gold Paralympic champion has the Sept 21-27 World Para Swimming Championships in her sights. She will be hoping to extend her record of seven golds and two silvers at the meet, which will be held at OCBC Aquatic Centre.

21. Leon Marchand (Fra) 22

Swimming

Leon Marchand has Olympic golds in the butterfly, breaststroke and medley, and he is coming to Singapore for the July 11-Aug 3 world championships. This is a multi-stroke talent not to be missed. 

22. Alexis and Felix Lebrun (Fra) 21, 18

Table tennis

Despite their tender age, the bespectacled brothers have contributed two Olympic bronzes at Paris 2024 to end a 24-year table tennis medal drought for France. Their telepathic understanding helped them win the World Table Tennis Finals men’s doubles crown to ensure they enter 2025 as world No. 1.

23. Izaac Quek and Koen Pang (Sgp) 18, 22

Table tennis

The duo will be hoping for a prosperous outing at the Singapore Smash during the Chinese New Year period, after their 2024 run to the men’s doubles quarter-finals and climbing to a career-high ninth in the world rankings in December.

24. Novak Djokovic (Srb) 37

Tennis

In 2023, he won three Grand Slam titles. In 2024, he made only a single Slam final. He’s 37, his body is starting to betray him and he’s no longer No. 1. But he is the greatest tennis player ever with 24 Slam crowns and has just hired Andy Murray as his coach. This might be his last dance and you can be sure it will be full of defiance. 

25. Joao Fonseca (Bra) 18

Tennis

The Brazilian teenager won the Next Gen ATP Finals in December despite being the lowest seed and found himself in elite company as he joined Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz as the only 18-year-olds to win the tournament. The Rio de Janeiro native, who reached two ATP quarter-finals in 2024, will be eyeing significant progress in 2025.