Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Kenya’s marathon great Eliud Kipchoge will get a rare chance of defending his IAAF male World Athlete of the Year Award after being named among the five finalists that have had a wonderful 2019 season.

With just 12 days to go until the World Athletics Awards 2019, the world marathon record holder made the cut from the provisional list of 11 that also had compatriot Timothy Cheruiyot. 

Unfortunately, the 1,500m world champion and 2019 Diamond League Trophy winner did not make the cut, leaving Kipchoge to tussle it out with Uganda’s Joshua Chepetegei, the 10,000m world champion, American duo Noah Lyles and Sam Kendricks who are the 200m and triple jump world champions respectively as well as world 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm from Norway. 

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 on November 23, he will join an exclusive list of multiple winners 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 an unprecedented 1:59.40 in Vienna, Austria last month 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. 

A three-way voting process determined the finalists.

The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family cast their votes by email, while fans voted online via social media platforms. 

The council’s vote counted for 50 per cent of the result, while the Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes each counted for 25 per cent of the final result.

Voting for the Male World Athlete of the Year closed on 4 November.