NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 21 – Kenya’s great Eliud Kipchoge has been nominated for the 2021 World Athletics Male Athlete of the Year ahead of the Awards ceremony to be held in December.
This week marks the opening of the voting process for the 2021 World Athletes of the Year.
Kipchoge is among a list of 10 nominees who were selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of World Athletics.
The nominations reflect the remarkable range of exceptional performances that the sport has witnessed this year, at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, one-day meeting circuits and other events around the world.
Commenting on the Awards, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said: “As always, the World Athletics Awards will recognise athletes who have performed at the highest level across the year, taking into account not only the Olympic Games, but the one-day meeting circuits.”
“We do recognise that athletes in some parts of the world faced greater challenges than others in accessing international competition this year, which complicated the nomination process.”
“However, we saw some impressive breakthroughs at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and we look forward to those athletes having more opportunities to shine next year, with five World Athletics Series events and a full schedule of one-day meetings on the calendar.”
A three-way voting process will determine the finalists.
The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family will cast their votes by email, while fans can vote online via the World Athletics social media platforms. Individual graphics for each nominee will be posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram this week; a ‘like’ on Facebook and Instagram or a retweet on Twitter will count as one vote.
The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50% of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25% of the final result.
Voting for the World Athletes of the Year closes at midnight on Saturday 6 November. At the conclusion of the voting process, five men and five women finalists will be announced by World Athletics.
-The nominees for 2021 Male World Athlete of the Year are (in alphabetical order):
Joshua Cheptegei, UGA
– Olympic 5000m champion
– Olympic 10,000m silver medallist
– World-leading 8:09.55 for two miles
Ryan Crouser, USA
– Olympic and Diamond League shot put champion
– Undefeated all year
– World shot put records indoors and outdoors
Mondo Duplantis, SWE
– Olympic pole vault champion
– Diamond League pole vault champion
– European indoor pole vault champion
Jakob Ingebrigtsen, NOR
– Olympic 1500m champion
– European indoor 1500m champion
– European 1500m and 5000m records
Eliud Kipchoge, KEN
– Olympic marathon champion
– Largest winning margin in men’s Olympic marathon since 1972
– Winner of Enschede Marathon
Pedro Pichardo, POR
– Olympic triple jump champion
– Diamond League triple jump champion
– European indoor triple jump champion
Daniel Stahl, SWE
– Olympic discus champion
– Diamond League discus champion
– Threw world-leading 71.40m
Miltiadis Tentoglou, GRE
– Olympic long jump champion
– European indoor long jump champion
– Jumped world-leading 8.60m
Damian Warner, CAN
– Olympic decathlon champion
– Winner at the Götzis Hypo Meeting
– National and Olympic record of 9018, moved to fourth on the world all-time list
Karsten Warholm, NOR
– Olympic 400m hurdles champion
– Diamond League 400m hurdles champion – World 400m hurdles record and world 300m hurdles be
