World Athlete of the Year: Amusan misses out on top prize
The 25-year old who is among the fve finalists had done quite well in the period under review even setting a world record
Contrary to wide expectations, Nigeria's Tobiloba Amusan has failed to emerge women's World Athlete of the Year.
The 25-year old who is among the fve finalists had done quite well in the period under review even setting a world record but it wasn't enough to land her the top accoladesl.
Instead, Sweden's pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis and 400m hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the United States, world champions and record-breakers this season, were respectively named men's and women's World Athlete of the Year.
Four years ago as 19-year-olds both won the Rising Star Awards; both rose and shone gloriously in 2022.
Duplantis, despite only just turning 23, now has more six-metre clearances than any other pole vaulter in history.
His record-breaking 2022 campaign began with an undefeated indoor season, during which he raised his own world record to 6.19 metres in Belgrade.
He returned to the Serbian capital two weeks later for the World Athletics Indoor Championships, where he won with another world record, 6.20m.
He was then victorious on the Diamond League circuit, including a 6.16m vault in Stockholm, the highest-ever outdoor vault in history.
As the last athlete competing on the final day of competition at the World Championships in Oregon, Duplantis soared to another world record of 6.21m with room to spare.
World Athlete of the Year ???? @mondohoss600 ???????? is your World Athlete of the Year ????
Duplantis broke the world pole vault record on three occasion and became world champion indoors and outdoors.#AthleticsAwards pic.twitter.com/5p60dgiLcX
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) December 5, 2022
Less than a month later, he retained his European title with a championship record of 6.06m in a competition where he registered no misses.
He then won the Diamond League final in Zurich.
"Going into the year, I had really high expectations of myself and I had some really big goals," Duplantis told World Athletics.
"I wanted to win the world indoors, the world outdoors, the Europeans, the Diamond League final, and I wanted to break the world record a few times.
"I was able to do that and it was a bonus, the cherry on top, to do be able to do it [break the world record] at the right times, to do it at world indoors and do it at world outdoors.
"I can’t complain."
Duplantis' victory denied Kenya's 38-year-old marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge a hat-trick of titles after his awards in 2018 and 2019.
Kipchoge lowered his own official world record by 30 seconds in winning a fourth Berlin Marathon title in 2 hours 1min 9sec.
Noah Lyles of the US broke Michael Johnson's national 200 metres record of 19.32sec - then a world record at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics - in winning world gold in Eugene, moving to third on the all-time list.
