Rio Olympic Games sprint double champions, Usain Bolt and Elaine Thompson, are shortlisted the IAAF Athletes of the Year.
Bolt, who won the sprint double at August’s Rio 2016 Olympic Games, is among three male athletes on the shortlist.
Bolt also helped Jamaica to gold in the men’s 4x100m relay.
Thompson, who became the first Caribbean woman to win the sprint double at the Olympic Games, will face-off with two other women for the top prize. She also helped Jamaica to silver in the 4x100m relay.
Jamaican Omar McLeod, who was nominated, did not make the final cut. McLeod, in his first full professional season, won the World Indoor 60m hurdles and 110m sprint hurdles at the Olympic Games.
“With less than a month to go until the IAAF Athletics Awards 2016, the IAAF can reveal the names of the finalists for the 2016 IAAF World Athlete of the Year awards,” the IAAF said in a statement this morning (November 9).
The finalists are (in alphabetical order):
Men
Usain Bolt (JAM)
Mo Farah (GBR)
Wayde van Niekerk (RSA)
Women
Almaz Ayana (ETH)
Elaine Thompson (JAM)
Anita Wlodarczyk (POL)
The finalists were determined by a three-way voting process. The IAAF Council’s vote counted for 50% of the result, the IAAF Family’s* vote counted for 25% and a public vote, conducted via social media, counted for 25% of the final result.
The World Athletes of the Year will be announced live on stage at the IAAF Athletics Awards 2016.
IAAF
*IAAF Family: IAAF member federations, IAAF Committee members, IAAF meeting directors, IAAF athlete ambassadors, athletes’ representatives, top athletes, members of the international press, IAAF staff members and the IAAF’s official partners.
