January

The first world record of the year came on the last day of the month when Berhane Adere took 8.06 secs off the women's world indoor 5000m mark with 14:39.29 at Stuttgart, Germany.

February

The indoor season got into full swing with much intensive competition, especially in Europe. Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia) broke Haile Gebrselassie's world indoor record for 5000m with 12:49.60 at Birmingham, England, and Stefan Holm set a pb with what remained a world best for the year, 2.37 for the high jump, 56 cm above his own head, at Stockholm, Sweden. He was unbeaten all year, in 8 indoor and 14 outdoor events including taking Olympic gold.

This was to prove a stand-out year for women's pole vaulting and the Russians Yelena Isinbayeva, 4.83, and Svetlana Feofanova, 4.85, set the first world records of the year in indoor competition. Stacy Dragila returned to top form with her eighth US national indoor title with 4.70 at Boston (Roxbury), where Gail Devers, now 37 years old, won a double (achieved previously only by Chi Cheng TPE in 1970) with 60m in 7.12 and 60mh in 7.81.

March

There were six world indoor records at the World Indoor Championships in Budapest, Hungary including three by Tatyana Lebedeva (Russia), who first equalled Ashia Hansen's 1998 mark of 15.16 and then pushed out the record to 15.25 and 15.36 in the women's triple jump before achieving a unique double by winning the long jump with 6.98. Yelena Isinbayeva regained the world pole vault record with 4.86 in the greatest ever women's competition, in which Stacy Dragila improved her US record with 4.81 for 2nd and Svetlana Feofanova was 3rd with 4.70. Christian Olsson tied the world record with a 17.83 triple jump and the Russian women's 4x400m team ran 3:23.88.

Maria Mutola at 800m became the first athlete to win six world indoor titles and US stars Gail Devers and Allen Johnson took their tally of global titles to 11 and 8 respectively. A week later Jeremy Wariner set US Collegiate records of 45.39 for 400m and on the Baylor 4x400m team's 3:03.96 as Louisiana State University won both men's and women's titles, the first by 6.5 points from Arkansas and Florida and the later by just one point from Florida, at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

Kenenisa Bekele achieved his third successive short and long course double success (with his teammate Gebre Gebremariam second in both) at the World Cross-country Championships in Brussels, Belgium. Edith Masai (Kenya) won the women's 4km race for the third successive year and Benita Johnson became the first Australian World CC champion. Ethiopia was easily the most successful nation, winning five of the six team titles and 14 of the 18 individual medals to just one and two for Kenya.

April

Kenyans dominated the top Spring marathons, with Felix Limo running 2:06:14 in Rotterdam and Evans Rutto 2:06:18 in London, while times were much slower at Boston, won by Timothy Cherigat in 2:10:37, due to the hot weather. Margaret Okayo won at London in 2:22:35 and Catherine Ndereba at Boston (for the third time) in 2:24:27.

May

We celebrated the 50th anniversary of Roger Bannister's first sub-4 minute-mile at Oxford, England on 6 May, but most top track men start their seasons later these days. Walkers were out in force for the World Race Walking Cup at Naumburg, Germany where 20km winner Jefferson Perez (Ecuador) became the fourth man to achieve three wins at this event. There were repeat wins at Gotzis, Austria in the great annual multi-events meeting for Roman Sebrle (Czech Republic), decathlon, 8842 and Carolina Kluft (Sweden) 6820. Both went on to win Olympic titles and stay unbeaten at these events.

June

Top male athlete of the year Kenenisa Bekele started his European campaign on 31 May and took the world record for 5000m with 12:37.35 at Hengelo, Netherlands. Just nine days later he added that for 10,000m with 26:20.31 at Ostrava, Czech Republic. Both records were two- second improvements on records set by his mentor, Haile Gebrselassie, and it is astonishing to realise that the 10,000m time was over three minutes inside the two world records that Emil Zatopek had set at Ostrava in 1949.

After excellent competition at the four regional qualifying meetings at the end of May, Arkansas was a clear men's winner at the NCAA Championships, but UCLA beat LSU by just one point 69-68 in the women's. Jeremy Wariner became the first man to win the 400m and 4x400m double both indoors and out in one year and Sheena Johnson improved her collegiate women's record at 400mh to 53.54. This year Alan Webb began to realise the immense promise that he had shown in high school, and he won the mile at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene in 3:50.85 for the fastest ever by an American on US soil - beating Jim Ryun's 1967 world record 3:51.1.

At the first Golden League meeting of the year, the Bislett Games, held this year in Bergen, Norway, Elvan Abeylegesse (Turkey) took 3.41 secs off Jiang Bo's seven year-old world record for 5000m with 14:24.68. In the Russian Walks Champs at Cheboksary, Denis Nizhegorodov improved the world record for 50km by 34 seconds to 3:35:29.

July

Stacy Dragila had set an outdoor best of 4.83 at Ostrava in June and then the world record race got under way again. These were the subsequent improvements in 2004: Yelena Isinbayeva 4.87 at Gateshead on 27 June; Svetlana Feofanova 4.88 (the first ever 16ft vault by a woman) at Iraklion 4 July, Isinbayeva 4.89 at Birmingham 25 July, 4.90 at London 30 July, 4.91 at the Olympics and 4.92 at Brussels on 3 September. Another world record came at Iraklion, where Gulnara Samitova (Russia) took her time for the 3000m steeplechase down to 9:01.59.

Against an unfortunate backdrop of intense speculation about drug taking, especially with the BALCO affair, the US Olympic Trials at Sacramento provided the usual excitement and quality action. Some potential Olympic gold medallists, such as Christian Cantwell and Sandra Glover, missed qualifying for the team while Marion Jones made it just in the long jump and relay, but there were plenty of top marks, not least in the men's sprints where Maurice Greene 9.91, Shaun Crawford 19.99 and Jeremy Wariner 44.37 were the winners. Gail Devers ensured that she would match the American record of five Olympics by winning the 100m hurdles in 12.55 from the fast-improving Joanna Hayes 12.57 (pb 12.50 in her semi-final).

Top prospects for the future showed their prowess at the World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy, where there were nine new championship records, including three world junior records by US relay teams. LaShawn Merritt ran on both the men's teams to do so, having earlier taken gold at 400m in 45.25.

August

Putting aside fears that Athens would not be ready, the Olympic Games were a huge success. Athletics of the highest quality included two world records - Yelena Isinbayeva clearing 4.91 in the women's vault and Liu Xiang (China) equalling the mark for 110m hurdles with 12.91 - and Olympic records were set in eleven events. Osleidys Menendez (Cuba) fell just 1cm short of her own world record for the women's javelin.

Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco) sealed his place in history by winning the 1500m at the third attempt and he came back to add a second gold medal at 5000m, and few who saw it will ever forget the looks of wonder, doubt and sheer delight on the face of Kelly Holmes (GBR) after she won the 800m. Her years of injury problems were put firmly behind her when she came back to win a second gold, at 1500m, with consummate authority.

Such stars such as Kenenisa Bekele (10,000m), Felix Sanchez (Dominican Republic, 400m hurdles) and Carolina Kluft (heptathlon) added to their glories, but just two, Robert Korzeniowski (Poland, a unique three successes at 50km walk) and Virgilijus Alekna (Lithiania) (discus), of the 17 competing defending champions at individual events retained their titles.

There were, of course, others - such as Paula Radcliffe (GBR), Perdita Felicien (Canada), Gail Devers and Allen Johnson - whose hopes were dashed. And depressingly, but perhaps inevitably, drug issues continued to provide an unpleasant backdrop, with three 'winners' disqualified after the Kederis and Thanou affair had hit the headlines in the lead up to the Games.

September

The Golden League season concluded with meetings in Brussels and Berlin, and two athletes shared the IAAF's jackpot of $1 million - Tonique Williams-Darling (Bahamas), who took over from Ana Guevara as the top woman 400m runner, and Christian Olsson, who stepped into the footsteps of Jonathan Edwards as the top male triple jumper. Both went through the six meetings of the Golden League undefeated and both also won Olympic titles in splendid style.

At Brussels, Saif Saaeed Shaheen, unable to compete at the Olympics as Kenya would not give him permission for his adopted nation of Qatar, took the world record for the 3000m steeplechase with 7:53.63. He was clearly the top man at his event, unbeaten in six races in 2004.

Asafa Powell disappointed in the Olympic 100m final (although running 9.94 for 5th), but impressed hugely with a Jamaican record 9.87 in Brussels and was one of the stars of the IAAF World Athletics Finals in Monaco, where he won the 100m/200m sprint double in 9.98 and 20.06. His compatriot Veronica Campbell won the women's double in 10.91 and 22.64w.

Twelve Olympic champions won here, including Tim Mack, who upped his vault best from 5.95 to 6.01 before trying the world record height of 6.16, and such stars such as Stefan Holm, Christian Olsson, Yelena Slesarenko (Russia, high jump) and Kelly Holmes built on their triumphs while Saif Saaeed Shaheen confirmed his status as the world's no. 1 with a 7:56.94, the fifth fastest 3000m steeplechase of all-time. Breaux Greer improved his North American javelin record to 87.68 despite wearing a brace on his injured left leg.

At the World Athletics Gala held after the meeting, Kenenisa Bekele and Yelena Isinbayeva were announced as the 2004 Athletes of the Year, with awards for the Performances of the Year going to Hicham El Guerrouj and Kelly Holmes for their double Olympic triumphs.

October

There were wins at the World Half Marathon Championships at New Delhi, India for men: Paul Kirui (Kenya), and women: Sun Yingjie (China), with team titles going to Kenya and Ethiopia. Evans Rutto (2:06:16 in Chicago) and Felix Limo (2:06:44 in Berlin) added big city marathon race wins to those they took in the Spring, and Robert Cheboror (Kenya) won in Amsterdam in 2:06:23.

November

Paula Radcliffe had hit the headlines when, suffering from the conditions as well as illness and restricted preparations, she dropped out at the Olympics. But she returned to winning form at the New York Marathon, beating Susan Chepkemei (Kenya) after a magnificent duel in 2:23:14. On a sunny day Hendrick Ramaala (South Africa) was the men's winner in 2:09:28 from Meb Keflezighi 2:09:53. New records were set with 36,562 finishers (24,574 men and 11,988 women) from 37,257 starters.

December

More drugs bans, revelations and suspicions were all too prevalent as the year came to an end. but, as most of the top athletes took time off from competition, we had plenty of enthralling action to recall over a generally splendid year for the sport.