By OUR CORRESPONDENT
Three Kenyans have been nominated for World Athletics’ track athlete of the year awards.
Olympic champions Faith Kipyegon, Emmanuel Wanyonyi and Beatrice Chebet have been shortlisted for the prestigious annual award.
Wanyonyi, 20, the Olympics 800m champion will battle it out with Olympics 400m hurdles champion Rai Benjamin of the US, Olympics 110m hurdles champion Grant Holloway also from the US Olympics 5000m champion and 3000m world record holder Jakob Ingebrigsten of Norway, Botswana’s Olympics 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and 100m champion Noah Lyles of the US.
In April, he set a world record of 3:54.6 for the mile at the Adizero Roads to Record in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
He followed it up with a world lead of 1:43.57 in the men’s 800m at the fourth edition of the Kip Keino Classic World Continental Tour Gold in Nairobi.
At the Paris Olympics, he finally got his hands on the coveted title at the senior level, clocking 1:41.19 to win the men’s 800m.
There was more to come from the 2021 World Under 20 champion as he equaled Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer as the second fastest man in the one-lap race after timing 1:41.11 to win the Lausanne Diamond League in August.
In the women’s category pits Kipyegon and Chebet will face Olympics 100m champion Julian Alfred of St Lucia, United States’ Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (Olympics 400m hurdles champion and world record holder) and Gabby Thomas (Olympics 200m champion) as well as Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino (Olympics 400m champion).
For Kipyegon, the awards are a familiar territory for her, having bagged the same in last year’s ceremony in the aftermath of a record-breaking season.
Kipyegon, who struggled with an injury at the beginning of the season, resumed her throne in her first race, winning the women’s 1500m on home soil at the Kip Keino Classic.
Having easily secured her ticket to the Paris Olympics, the 30-year-old gave a befitting preview of what was to come at the quadrennial games when she smashed her own world record, clocking 3:49.04 at July’s Diamond League in the French capital.
Come the summer games and Kipyegon wrote her name in the competition’s folklore when she timed 3:51.29 to win her third consecutive Olympics title – the only athlete to ever do so in the in the women’s 1500m.
This, to add to the silver she had already clinched in the women’s 5000m.
That lady who denied her gold in the 12-and-a-half-lap race, Chebet, is also coming off a historical season in which her track cred has risen in leaps and bounds.
The 25-year-old has distinguished herself by an indefatigable attitude and powerful kick in the last lap, which catches her opponents offguard.
These qualities were on display at the World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, Serbia where recovered in the last lap to successfully defend her title, clocking 31:05 to win the senior women’s 10km race.
That win was just a tip of the iceberg; in June, the Commonwealth Games champion brought the world to its feet when she clocked a world record of 28:54.14 in the women’s 10,000m at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon.
With that, she booked her ticket on the plane to Paris.
Although she initially expressed reservations about doubling in the 10,000m and 5000m, Chebet eventually elected to do so and it was a decision that paid dividends.
At the quadrennial games, she clocked 14:28.56 to win the women’s 5000m – becoming the first Kenyan to win the race since Vivian Cheruiyot at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
She went a step further to become the first-ever Kenyan to win the women’s 10,000m in the history of the Olympics when she clocked 30:43.25 to cross the finish line first.
