Kosgei nominated for female world athlete
NAIROBI: Brigid Kosgei, who broke the marathon world record at the weekend, was among 11 nominees announced Tuesday on the IAAF’s list of candidates for female world athlete of the year.
Kosgei’s fellow Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, who on Saturday became the first person to run the marathon distance in under two hours, was one of the 11 men nominated in a list released on Monday by the governing body of world athletics.
The two marathon runners are the only nominees not to have won a gold medal at the recent World Championships at Doha.
Kosgei, 25, shattered Britain’s Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year-old women’s marathon world record on Sunday, with a time of two hours, 14 minutes and four seconds in Chicago.
She is one of three Kenyans on the women’s list. The others are 3,000m steeplechase world record-holder and world champion Beatrice Chepkoech and two-time world 5,000m champion, Hellen Obiri.
Kipchoge is joined on the men’s list by fellow Kenyan Timothy Cheruyiot who won the 10,000m world title, on a men’s list dominated by Americans.
Sprinters Christian Coleman and Noah Lyles, pole vaulter Sam Kendricks, triple jumper Christian Taylor and 800m runner Donavan Brazier are all on the list.
Brazier is one of two nominees who are members of the controversial Oregon Project and were trained by Alberto Salazar, who was banned for doping as the world championship began. The other is Ethiopian-born Dutch athlete Sifan Hassan, who won both the women’s 1,500m and 10,000m in Doha.
Women’s nominees: Beatrice Chepkoech (KEN); Shelly-Ann FraserPryce (JAM); Katarina JohnsonThompson (GBR); Sifan Hassan (NED); Brigid Kosgei (KEN); Mariya Lasitskene (ANA); Malaika Mihambo (GER); Dalilah Muhammad (USA); Salwa Eid Naser (BRN); Hellen Obiri (KEN); and Yulimar Rojas (VEN).
Men’s nominees: Donavan Brazier (USA); Christian Coleman (USA); Joshua Cheptegei (UGA); Timothy Cheruyiot (KEN); Steven Gardiner (BAH); Sam Kendricks (USA); Eliud Kipchoge (KEN); Noah Lyles (USA); Daniel Stahl (SWE); Christian Taylor (USA); and Karsten Warholm (NOR). AFP