World Athletics announced its final list of nominees for its end-of-year awards, with some big names failing to make the cut.
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Kenyan trio Faith Kiyegon, Beatrice Chebet and Emmanuel Wanyonyi were conspicuously absent despite record-breaking seasons.
Ruth Chepng’etich is the only Kenyan up for an award this year. She recently shattered the women’s marathon world record in Chicago.
Chepng’etich will have to fend off triple gold medalist in Paris Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and 100m champion Julien Alfred, who have also been nominated for female athlete of the year.
The list also includes Sifan Hassan, who won the Olympic marathon title, Olympic heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam and Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who set a new world high jump record and is the Olympic champion.
Despite the list being star-studded as it is, it still elicited sharp reactions after two of Kenya’s best performers in 2024 missed out.
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Chebet arguably had the best season of her life, which started with breaking the 10,000m world record at the Prefontaine Classic. She then went to Paris, where she won a double, beating Kipyegon to the 5000m title, before completing it with the 10,000m crown.
Kipyegon meanwhile broke her own 1500m world record again before becoming the first person, male or female, to successfully win three consecutive Olympic titles in the distance. Both Kipyegon and Chebet also won the Diamond League trophy, among other achievements.
@TMK said,
“Beatrice Chebet did the track distance double at the Olympics, won the DL trophy in the 5k & broke the 10K WR only to end up not being a finalist? Not to mention Faith Kipyegon? With all due respect, how have you decided that either Sydney or Julien Alfred had a better season?”
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@Lavadoras said,
“Beatrice Chebet, who won two individual Olympic gold medals, unlike all these -great athletes you have chosen.”
The winner will be announced on December 1.
More to follow.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
