The accolades keep coming for Eliud Kipchoge.
Just over 48 hours after his historic feat of running a marathon under two hours in Vienna, Austria on Saturday, the 34-year-old will get a rare chance of defending his IAAF World Athlete of the Year Award after after being named among 11 male runners that have had a wonderful 2019 season.
Kipchoge became the second Kenyan to win the prestigious award since David Rudisha ‘s record breaking feat in 2012 when he was feted last year, following his 2:01:39 world record in the 2018 Berlin Marathon and if he is crowned in Monaco next month, he will join an exclusive list of multiple winners of the award such as Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt (six), Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj (three), Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele (two) as well as Americans Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson who have two apiece.
The marathoner, who clocked 1:59:40 in Vienna, is considered hot favourite for the award given besides the historic race, he is also the 2019 London Marathon winner, having triumphed in April in a new course record of 2:02:37.
Kipchoge is not the only Kenyan on the provisional list, however. He is joined by compatriot Timothy Cheruiyot, the best athlete in the mile this year, having crowned his season with a first gold medal at the Doha Worlds early this month.
Cheruiyot won 10 of his 11 outdoor races across all distances this year, besides defending his IAAF Diamond League Trophy before clocking 3:29.26 for gold in Doha to end three years of agony where he had to settle for silver in Africa Championships (2016 and 2018), World Championships (2017) and Commonwealth Games (2018).
The two Kenyans will, however, have to battle it out with Americans Donovan Braizer, the 800m world champion, 100m sensation Christian Coleman, who also won gold in 4x100m in Doha, Noah Lyles, the 200m and 4x100m world champion, world triple jump winner Christian Taylor and world pole vault champion Sam Kendricks.
Others on the list are Uganda’s Joshua Chepetegei, the 10,000m world champion, Steven Gardiner of Bahrain, undefeated all year in 400m and won the title in Doha, Sweden’s Daniel Stahl, world discus winner, and world 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm from Norway.
A three-way voting process will determine the finalists.
The IAAF Council and the IAAF Family will cast their votes by email, while fans can vote online via the IAAF’s social media platforms.
Individual graphics for each nominee will be posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram this week; a ‘like’ on Facebook and Instagram or a retweet on Twitter will count as one vote.
The IAAF Council’s vote will count for 50 per cent of the result, while the IAAF Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25 per cent of the final result.
Voting for the Male World Athlete of the Year closes on November 4. At the conclusion of the voting process, five men and five women finalists will be announced by the IAAF. The female nominees will be announced on Tuesday.
