Eliud Kipchoge battles nine world champs for Athlete of the Year Award
Two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge will battle nine world champions for the men's 2022 World Athlete of the Year Award. The 37-year-old Kipchoge, who is fresh from breaking his own marathon world record, won the 2018 and 2019 awards but also made the final list for the 2020 and 2021 awards.
The winner of the prestigious award in world athletics will be revealed on World Athletics’ social media platforms in early December.
The announcement on Thursday marked the opening of the voting process for the 2022 World Athletes of the Year ahead of the 2022 World Athletics Awards in December.
Olympics 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm last year became the first Norwegian to win the Male Athlete of the Year Award, beating four other finalists who included Kipchoge and Olympic 5,000m champion Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda for the award.
Kipchoge will face world champions Ceh Kristjan (discus) from Slovakia, Brazilian Alison Dos Santos (400m hurdles), the 2020 winner, Swede Mondo Duplantis (pole vault), Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali (3,000m steeplechase) and American Grant Holloway (110m hurdles).
Others are Norwegian Jakob Ingerbrigtsen (5,000m), Noah Lyles (200m) from United States, Grenada’s Anderson Peters (javelin) and Pedro Pichardo (triple jump) from Portugal.
The athletes were selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of World Athletics.
“It has been another memorable year for the sport and the nominations reflect some of the standout performances achieved at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, one-day meeting circuits and other events around the world,” said a statement from World Athletics.
Kipchoge recaptured the Berlin Marathon title, smashing his own world record by 30 seconds on September 25 in the German capital.
The 2016 and 2020 Olympic marathon champion clocked 2:01:09 to win, beating his previous world record time of 2:01:39 set when winning in Berlin in 2018.
Kipchoge had on March 6 this year won the Tokyo Marathon in a course record time of 2:02:40, beating the newly crowned London Marathon champion Amos Kipruto to second place in 2:03:13.
Kenya's Olympic and world 1,500m champion Faith Chepng'etich was on Wednesday named among the 10 nominees for the female 2022 World Athlete of the Year award.
Kipchoge is the only other Kenyan male to win the award besides 800m world record holder David Rudisha, who claimed it in 2010.
No Kenyan woman has won the award.
A three-way voting process will determine the finalists.
The voting process closes on October 31.
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, Instagram and YouTube this week; a 'like' on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube or a retweet on Twitter will count as one vote.
The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50 percent of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25 per cent of the final result.
Voting for the World Athletes of the Year closes at midnight on October 31. At the conclusion of the voting process, five women and five men finalists will be announced by World Athletics.
Nominees
Kristjan Ceh (Slovakia)
- World discus champion
- Diamond League discus champion, throwing a national record 71.27m on the circuit in Birmingham
- European discus silver medalist
Alison dos Santos (Brazil)
- World 400m hurdles champion
- Diamond League 400m hurdles champion
- Ran a world-leading South American record of 46.29
Mondo Duplantis (Sweden)
- World pole vault champion indoors and outdoors
- Diamond League and European pole vault champion
- Improved his world record to 6.19m and 6.20m indoors, and then 6.21m outdoors
Soufiane El Bakkali (Morocco)
- World 3000m steeplechase champion
- Diamond League 3000m steeplechase champion
- Unbeaten in 2022, running a world-leading 7:58.28 in Rabat
Grant Holloway (USA)
- World 110m hurdles champion
- World indoor 60m hurdles champion
- Diamond League 110m hurdles champion
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway)
- World 5000m champion, world 1500m silver medalist indoors and outdoors
- European 1500m and 5000m champion
- Diamond League 1500m champion in a world-leading 3:29.02
Eliud Kipchoge, (Kenya)
- Improved his world marathon record to 2:01:09
- Berlin Marathon champion
- Tokyo Marathon champion
Noah Lyles (USA)
- World 200m champion
- Diamond League 200m champion
- Ran a world-leading national record of 19.31 to move to third on the world all-time list
Anderson Peters (Grenada)
- World javelin champion
- Commonwealth javelin silver medalist
- Threw a world-leading NACAC record of 93.07m, moving to fifth on the world all-time list
Pedro Pichardo (Portugal)
- World triple jump champion with a world-leading leap of 17.95m
- World indoor triple jump silver medalist
- European triple jump champion.
posted Thursday October 13th
by Ayumba Ayodi