No Jamaican on IAAF female athlete of the year shortlist

When the IAAF female athlete of the year is decided in Monaco on Thursday December 4, no Jamaican will be among those vying for that award, as 10 athletes were recently selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of IAAF.

Only one athlete from the Caribbean, in the outstanding Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, has been nominated among those named. Miller-Uibo had an outstanding year where she was unbeaten across five events in 15 races. This comprised 13 finals and two preliminaries including 200m and 4x100m relay double at the Continental Cup.

Despite rarely running her pet event, the 400m this past season, she had a world lead time of 48.97 seconds in the event, posting the fastest time in the event in the world since 2006 when Sanya Richards, competing for the United States of America, posted 48.70 seconds in Athens, Greece. Also on her resume this year was her Commonwealth Games and Diamond League win in the 200m. She also had world indoor best times over the 300m and 150m straight races.

The other nine athletes that nominated for the top spot are:

Dina Asher-Smith (Great Britain)

Beatrice Chepkoech (Kenya)

Sifan Hassan (Netherlands)

Caterine Ibarguen (Colombia)

Sandra Perkovic (Croatia)

Caster Semenya (South Africa)

Anita Wlodarczyk (Poland)

Mariya Lasitskene (Authorised Neutral Athlete)

Nafissatou Thiam (Belgium)