Two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge is among the final five nominees to battle for the men’s 2022 World Athlete of the Year Award.
World Athletics confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that the 37-year-old Kipchoge had alongside four other world champions made it from a pool of 10 athletes.
The winner of the prestigious award in world athletics will be revealed on World Athletics’ social media platforms in early December.
Kipchoge will face world champions- Swede Mondo Duplantis (pole vault), who won the 2020 World Athlete of the Year Award, Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali (3,000m steeplechase), Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen (5,000m) and Noah Lyles (200m) from United States of America.
Those who failed to make it to the top five are world champions Ceh Kristjan (discus) from Slovakia, Brazilian Alison Dos Santos (400m hurdles), American Grant Holloway (110m hurdles), Grenada’s Anderson Peters (javelin) and Pedro Pichardo (triple jump) from Portugal.
“The five athletes, who represent five countries from three area associations, have achieved sensational performances across a range of athletics disciplines in 2022, 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, who broke his own marathon world record seven weeks ago in Berlin, won the 2018 and 2019 awards but also made the final list for the 2020 and 2021 awards.
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 failed to make the final list of five nominees for the female 2022 World Athlete of the Year award.
Those who will contest for the women’s award are world champions Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan (100m hurdles), 2013 Women’s World Athlete of the Year, Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (100m) and American Sydney McLaughlin (World 400m hurdles and 4x400m).
Others are the 2020 Women’s World Athlete of the Year, Yulimar Rojas (Triple jump) from Venezuela and Peru’s Kimberly Garcia (20km race walk).
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.
The voting process closed on October 31.
A three-way voting process determined the finalists.
The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family cast their votes by email, while fans logged their decisions online via the World Athletics social media platforms where a record 1.3 million votes were registered.
The World Athletics Council’s vote counted for 50 percent of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes each counted for 25 percent of the final result.
The finalists
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
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway)
– World 5000m champion, world 1500m silver medallist indoors and outdoors
– European 1500m and 5000m champion
– Ran a world indoor 1500m record of 3:30.60 and won the Diamond League title 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
