Van Niekerk up against Bolt and Farah as IAAF athlete of the year
South Africa’s Olympic gold medallist Wayde van Niekerk will be up against superstar sprinter Usain Bolt as one of the finalists for the IAAF Athletics Awards for 2016.
The World Athletes of the Year will be announced live on stage at the IAAF Athletics Awards in Monaco on December 2.
Van Niekerk, the 400m Olympic champion, will compete against Jamican sprint sensation and multi-Olympic and World Champion Bolt and middle-distance runner, Mo Farah, from Great Britain.
In the women’s section the winner will come from Ethiopian Almaz Ayana, Jamaican Elaine Thompson and Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk.
The finalists were determined by a three-way voting process.
The IAAF Council’s vote counted for 50 percent of the result, the IAAF Family’s vote counted for 25 percent and a public vote, conducted via social media, counted for 25 percent of the final result.