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Thompson Herah among World Athlete of the Year finalists

Published:Tuesday | November 24, 2020 | 7:08 AM
Thompson Herah
Thompson Herah

Jamaica's Olympic double sprint champion, Elaine Thompson Herah, was named among five finalists for the Female World Athlete of the Year 2020 award. The World Athlete of the Year award will be staged virtually on December 5, 2020.

Thompson Herah went undefeated in her seven 100m races this year and recorded a world-leading 10.85 seconds in the process.

The other finalists are Letesenbet Gidey (Ethiopia), who set a world record of 14:06.62 over 5000m and was second in the 5000m at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco; Sifan Hassan, (Netherlands), who also set a world record in the one hour run as well as a European record of 29:36.67 over 10,000m, the fourth fastest performance in history.

Kenya's Peres Jepchirchir, who won the world half marathon title and twice broke the world half marathon record for a women-only race was also named among the finalists, as was Yulimar Rojas, (Venezuela), who was undefeated in four triple jump competitions indoors and outdoors and broke the world indoor triple jump record with 15.43m

The male and female World Athletes of the Year will be announced live at the World Athletics Awards 2020 to be staged as a virtual event on Saturday 5 December and streamed live on the World Athletics YouTube channel, its Facebook page and via Twitter.

The finalists were determined through a three way voting procedure.

The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family cast their votes by email, while fans voted online via our social media platforms. The Council’s vote counted for 50% of the result, while the Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes each counted for 25% of the final result.

The finalists for the Male World Athlete of the Year are:

Joshua Cheptegei, Uganda

- broke world records at 5000m (12:35.36), 10,000m (26:11.00) and 5km on the roads (12:51)

- was fourth at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships on his debut over the distance

Ryan Crouser, USA

- undefeated in 10 shot put competitions

- his 22.91m world-leading performance moved him to equal third on the world all-time list

Mondo Duplantis, Sweden

- broke the world record in the pole vault twice (6.17m and 6.18m) and produced the highest outdoor vault of all time (6.15m)

- undefeated in 16 competitions

Johannes Vetter, Germany

- won eight of his nine javelin competitions

- threw a world-leading 97.76m, the second farthest throw in history

Karsten Warholm, Norway

- ran a world-leading 46.87 in the 400m hurdles, the second fastest performance in history

- undefeated in nine 400m/400m hurdles races and set world best of 33.78 in 300m hurdles.