Cast your vote for me
World 1,500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot is confident of winning the male 2020 World Athletes of the Year award, during the awards Gala slated for December 5 in Monaco.
“I am confident of winning the award since many people will vote for me especially my fans,’’ said Cheruiyot in an interview with People Sport after the announcement of the nominees.
World Athletics disclosed on Monday that the list of 10 nominees for Male World Athlete of the Year were selected by an international panel of athletics experts comprising representatives from all six continental zones that form World Athletics.
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 per cent of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25 per cent of the final result.
Voting for the World Athletes of the Year closes at midnight on Sunday November 15. At the conclusion of the voting process, five men and five women finalists will be announced by World Athletics.
The final shortlist of five athletes will be released after the voting process concludes on November 15 where athletics fans from around the world will help select the finalists.
Cheruiyot ran a world-leading time of 3:28.45 over 1,500m and remained undefeated in three 1500m races in Monaco (3:28.45) and Stockholm (3:30.25) legs of the Diamond League and Kip Keino Classic (3:34.31) in the World Athletics Continental Gold Tour event.
Cheruiyot faces stiff competition from World 10,000m champion Joshua Cheptegei from Uganda, who broke both the 10,000m and 5,000m world records, as well as Swede Mondo Duplantis, who shattered the world record in the pole vault twice (6.17m and 6.18m) and produced the highest outdoor vault of all time (6.15m).
The Ugandan broke world records at 5000m (12:35.36), 10,000m (26:11.00) and 5km on the roads (12:51) and finished off his season with a fourth spot placing at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships on his debut over the distance.
Also shortlisted for the award is Ugandan World Half Marathon Champion Jacob Kiplimo.
