Running News Daily

World Athletics faces backlash for last-minute change to Athlete of the Year Awards

After months of discussion and voting on World Athletics’ social media pages for their prestigious World Athlete of the Year Award, the governing body of running/track and field did something no one could have predicted at the awards night on Monday in Monaco. For the first time in 35 years, the award was given to three men and three women, and fans across the sport are outraged.

Instead of giving out a men’s and women’s World Athlete of the Year award, as they’ve done in the past, they divided it into three categories: Track Athlete of the Year, Field Athlete of the Year, and Non-Stadia Athlete of the Year. Faith Kipyegon and Noah Lyles won the Track award, while pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis and triple jumper Yulimar Rojas won the Field award. Non-Stadia accolades went to the men’s and women’s new world record holders, Kelvin Kiptum and Tigist Assefa.

Online comments

The Internet was not impressed with World Athletics changing the format at the last minute (after the voting). Many thought deserving athletes like Kipyegon, Lyles and Kiptum were robbed of their glory and success. “What is the point of having finalists if everybody wins some category that wasn’t announced prior? It should have been clear you have categories from the start, not on the final day,” a fan tweeted.

“Such a useless ceremony,” tweeted another fan. Track and field sprint legend Michael Johnson even tweeted, “Am I the only person who thinks having six athletes of the year is a bad idea? Am I missing something?”

World Athletics’ reasoning

World Athletics said its decision to divide the award into three categories came from fans and council members, who commented that it was “incredibly hard” to limit the vote to just one athlete. That is what people say when they have a tough decision to make, meaning that World Athletics chose highly deserving finalists–not that they want to split the award. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe took it differently: “The depth of talent and the outstanding performances in our sport this year more than justify the expansion of the World Athletics Awards to recognize the accomplishments of these six athletes across a range of disciplines. It is only fitting that they be recognized as the athletes of the year in their respective fields,” Coe said in a press release.

Poor communication from World Athletics

When World Athletics named the 10 nominees for the award in late October, they did not indicate they were planning to divide the award three ways. Even when they narrowed it down to five finalists, there was no indication it would be split. Most fans would have been OK with three AOTY awards if they had known during the voting process that that would be the case.

In a sport that is always looking to grow and garner more attention, going against the grain of the community and fan votes is not a way to attract new people to the sport, especially heading into an Olympic year. Although it’s easy to understand World Athletics’ reasoning for splitting the award–it’s hard to compare athletes of different disciplines, especially since a pole vaulter like world champion Duplantis can only win accolades in one discipline, whereas Lyles or Kipyegon could win medals in two or three events. Still, World Athletics had three opportunities to inform the public they would be splitting the awards this year, and I am sure fewer fans would be disappointed in the outcome.

Imagine watching the Super Bowl and seeing them hand out an offensive, defensive and special teams MVP. It would make the award meaningless.