World Athletics has announced the two finalists for each of its six Athlete of the Year award categories:
Women’s Track
Julien Alfred (Olympic 100m gold medalist, Saint Lucia)
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (Olympic 400m hurdles gold medalist, USA)
Men’s Track
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Olympic 5000m gold medalist, Norway)
Letsile Tebogo (Olympic 200m gold medalist, Botswana)
Women’s Field
Yaroslava Mahuchikh (Olympic high jump gold medalist, Ukraine)
Nafi Thiam (Olympic heptathlon gold medalist, Belgium)
Men’s Field
Mondo Duplantis (Olympic pole vault gold medalist, Sweden)
Miltiadis Tentoglou (Olympic long jump gold medalist, Greece)
Women’s Out of Stadium
Ruth Chepngetich (Marathon world record holder, Kenya)
Sifan Hassan (Olympic marathon gold medalist, Netherlands)
Men’s Out of Stadium
Brian Pintado (Olympic 20km race walk gold medalist, Ecuador)
Tamirat Tola (Olympic marathon gold medalist, Ethiopia)
The finalists — from sets of five or six nominees per award — were determined by a three-way voting process: World Athletics Council vote (50%), World Athletics family vote (25%) and public vote through Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram (25%).
The lists of nominees included eight Americans: Gabby Thomas and McLaughlin-Levrone in women’s track; Rai Benjamin, Grant Holloway and Noah Lyles in men’s track; Valarie Allman and Tara Davis-Woodhall (women’s field) and Ryan Crouser (men’s field).
A final round of fan voting here through Sunday will decide the overall men’s and women’s World Athletes of the Year.
The Athletes of the Year over the six categories, as well as the overall Athletes of the Year, will be announced at a ceremony in Monaco on Dec. 1 as part of the 2024 World Athletics Awards.
World Athletics changed its awards system this year, crowning overall women’s and men’s World Athlete of the Year awards, in addition to the three separate awards for women and men for track events, field events and out-of-stadium events.
Last year, World Athletics divided its World Athlete of the Year awards into three categories for the first time.
The 2023 winners were Faith Kipyegon (women’s track), Lyles (men’s track), Venezuelan triple jumper Yulimar Rojas (women’s field), Duplantis (men’s field), Ethiopian marathoner Tigist Assefa (women’s out of stadium) and Kenyan marathoner Kelvin Kiptum (men’s out of stadium).
Before 2023, the award winners were one male athlete and one female athlete across all events. In that era, the last Americans to win a singular World Athlete of the Year were McLaughlin-Levrone in 2022 for the women and decathlete Ashton Eaton in 2015 for the men.
