Wayde van Niekerk: up for the main IAAF award
MO FARAH will go up against two of the greatest sprinters in history, Usain Bolt and Wayde van Niekerk, at the 2016 IAAF Athlete of the Year awards.
Farah, who successfully defended his 5000m and 10,000m Olympic titles this year in Rio, faces off against Bolt after the Jamaican completed a historic ‘triple triple’ of Olympic titles in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m, and 400m Olympic champion Van Niekerk from South Africa, who obliterated Michael Johnson’s world record en route to the title in Brazil with a time of 43.04.
Van Niekerk also became the first athlete in history to achieve sub-10, sub-20 and sub-44 times for the 100m, 200m and 400m.
In the women’s awards Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana leads the nominations after running an astonishing 29:17.45 world record in the 10,000m in Rio to crush the previous 23-year-old record by 14 seconds.