The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

WORLD Athletics on Thursday released the names of athletes nominated for the 2021 World Athletes of the Year as the voting process begins towards the selection at the World Athletics Awards 2021 in December.

The list released so far for the men, however, does not include Bahamian Steven Gardiner, who added the 400 metre title at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Beijing, China in August to his World Championship title in 2019.

World Athletics confirmed a list of 10 nominees for Male World Athlete of the Year who were selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of World Athletics.

The women’s list is expected to be released today and it will be interesting to see if Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who captured the gold as well in the 400m at the Olympics, will be included.

As for the men’s nominations, World Athletics says it reflects the remarkable range of exceptional performances that the sport has witnessed this year, at the Olympics, one-day meeting circuits and other events around the world.

“As always, the World Athletics Awards will recognise athletes who have performed at the highest level across the year, taking into account not only the Olympic Games, but the one-day meeting circuits,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.

“We do recognise that athletes in some parts of the world faced greater challenges than others in accessing international competition this year, which complicated the nomination process.

“However, we saw some impressive breakthroughs at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and we look forward to those athletes having more opportunities to shine next year, with five World Athletics Series events and a full schedule of one-day meetings on the calendar.”

Although he was undefeated this year in the 400m, and only lost in a 200m race at the end of the season, Gardiner didn’t participate in any major event outside of the United States this year, except for the Olympics.

The nominees for 2021 Male World Athlete of the Year are (in alphabetical order):

Joshua Cheptegei, UGA - Olympic 5000m champion; Olympic 10,000m silver medallist and World-leading 8:09.55 for two miles.

Ryan Crouser, USA - Olympic and Diamond League shot put champion; undefeated all year and World shot put records indoors and outdoors.

Mondo Duplantis, SWE - Olympic pole vault champion; Diamond League pole vault champion and European indoor pole vault champion.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen, NOR - Olympic 1500m champion; European indoor 1500m champion and European 1500m and 5000m records.

Eliud Kipchoge, KEN - Olympic marathon champion; largest winning margin in men’s Olympic marathon since 1972 and winner of Enschede Marathon.

Pedro Pichardo, POR - Olympic triple jump champion; Diamond League triple jump champion and European indoor triple jump champion.

Daniel Stahl, SWE - Olympic discus champion; Diamond League discus champion and he threw the world-leading 71.40m.

Miltiadis Tentoglou, GRE - Olympic long jump champion; European indoor long jump champion and he jumped a world-leading 8.60m.

Damian Warner, CAN - Olympic decathlon champion; winner at the Götzis Hypo Meeting and national and Olympic record of 9018, moved to fourth on the world all-time list

Karsten Warholm, NOR - Olympic 400m hurdles champion; Diamond League 400m hurdles champion and world 400m hurdles record and world 300m hurdles best.

A three-way voting process will determine the finalists.

The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family will cast their votes by email, while fans can vote online via the World Athletics 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 World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50% of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25% of the final result.

Voting for the World Athletes of the Year closes at midnight on Saturday 6 November. At the conclusion of the voting process, five men and five women finalists will be announced by World Athletics.

The male and female World Athletes of the Year will be announced live at the World Athletics Awards 2021 in December.