Van Niekerk faces off with Bolt for top award
With just seven days to go before voting for the 2016 World Athletes of the Year concludes Jamaican Usain Bolt looks the likely men's winner, but...
|||Monaco - With just seven days to go before voting for the 2016 World Athletes of the Year concludes Jamaican Usain Bolt looks the likely men's winner although SA's Wayde van Niekerk is likely to attract the second most votes.
Van Niekerk won the Olympic 400m title in spectacular fashion, running a 43.03 world record. The 24-year-old finished the season unbeaten across three events and also claimed African titles at 200m and 4x100m.
His also had season's best of 9.98 in the 100m and 20.02 in the 200. Bolt, meanwhile, successfully defended his Olympic titles in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay and ended the season unbeaten at all distances, including preliminaries.
The 30-year-old clocked 9.81 (100) and 19.78 (200) season's bests. Fellow Jamaican Omar McLeod emerged as the world's top sprint hurdler, winning both the Olympic title and world indoor gold in the 60m hurdles events, with world leads indoors (7.41 60m hurdles) and out (12.98).
The 22-year-old produced six of the eight fastest performances outdoors and became the first sub-13-second 110m hurdler to run faster than 10 seconds for the flat 100m.
On the women's side, Kendra Harrison (USA) broke the 28-year-old world record in the 100m hurdles with 12.20 on her way to becoming the event's Diamond Race winner. Harrison, 24, won 10 out of 11 finals outdoors.
Elaine Thompson (JAM) emerged as the world's premier sprinter, winning Olympic titles at both 100m and 200m, and ending the season with 10.70 and 21.78 world leads, respectively. The 24-year-old also won Olympic 4x100m silver and world indoor 60m bronze.
The winners will be announced at the IAAF Athletics Awards 2016 in Monaco on Friday 2 December.
African News Agency