The Best Record-Breaking Performance ESPY Award has been presented since 2001 to the amateur or professional sportsperson, irrespective of nationality or sport contested, adjudged to have, in a single play, game, or season, completed the best record-breaking (and -setting) performance, irrespective of the nature of the record broken.
Between 2001 and 2004, the award voting panel comprised variously fans; sportswriters and broadcasters, sports executives, and retired sportspersons, termed collectively experts; and ESPN personalities, but balloting thereafter has been undertaken exclusively by fans over the Internet from amongst choices nominated by the ESPN Select Nominating Committee.
Through the 2001 iteration of the ESPY Awards, ceremonies were conducted in February of each year to honor achievements over the previous calendar year; awards presented thereafter are conferred in June and reflect performance from the June previous.[1]
In 2024, Caitlin Clark became the first female athlete to win this award.[2]
List of winners
Best Record-Breaking Performance ESPY Award winners
Phelps extended his own record of being the most decorated Olympian during the Rio Olympics in 2016 with a total of 28 Olympic medals. He now has 23 Gold, 3 Silver, and 2 Bronze Olympic Medals.
Phelps previously held the record when he broke it in the London 2012 Olympics where he finished with a grand total of 22 Olympic medals.
^Because of the rescheduling of the ESPY Awards ceremony, the award presented in 2002 was given in consideration of performance betwixt February 2001 and June 2002.