Kipchoge among ten nominees for prestigious award

Two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge will battle it out with nine other athletes for the 2021 World Athletics Male Athlete of the Year award.

Kipchoge who was named the 2019 Athlete of the year alongside Dalila Muhammad has been shortlisted for the prestigious award after defending his Olympic crown during the Tokyo Games held in July.

The marathon record holder boasts of the largest winning margin of the men's Olympic marathon since 1972 also made it to the list by virtue of winning the Enschede Marathon in April.

He will come up against Olympic 5000m champion and Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei who is also the Olympic 10000m silver medalist and the world champion over the distance.

Olympic 1500m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway will also be in contention so is Diamond League pole vault champion Mondo Duplantis of Sweden. 

Another Norwegian in the list is Olympic and Diamond League 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm who is also the record holder over the distance. 

Damian Warner of Canada was picked to contest by virtue of being the Olympic decathlon champion while Miltiads Tentoglou who is the Olympic long jump champion is also in the list. 

Daniel Stahl of Sweden and Pedro Pichardo of Portugal as well as Ryan Crouse will also be eyeing the award. The three are the Olympic discus, triple jump, shot put champions respectively.

World Athletics President Sébastian Coe said the award seeks to recognise athletes who have performed at the highest level across the year not only in the Olympic Games but also the one-day meeting circuits. 

"We do recognize 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, "he said on the website.

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 global body's social media platforms.

Voting closes at midnight on Saturday November 6 where the top five in either categories will be announced. The female nominees will be announced on Friday.