Kipchoge votes for heir apparent Cheptegei 👑

📌 World Athletics Awards 6pm TODAY

✳ Contenders
• Cheptegei 🇺🇬
• Crouser 🇺🇸
• Duplantis 🇸🇪
• Vetter 🇩🇪
• Warholm 🇳🇴

• Gidey 🇪🇹
• Hassan 🇳🇱
• Jepchirchir 🇰🇪
• Rojas 🇻🇪
• Herah 🇯🇲

Kampala, Uganda  | LOUIS JADWONG | Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge has acknowledged Joshua Cheptegei as the world’s outstanding athlete of 2020.

If the three records are not enough, the vote of confidence by the 36-year-old reigning athletics king makes the 24-year-old crown princes’ succession ceremony at the palace in Monaco tonight the worst kept secret.

“I’m very honoured that I was two times the World Athletics Male Athlete of the year. For 2020, I wish my NN Running Team teammate Joshua Cheptege all the best in this award. He has my vote,” Kipchoge said soon after the shortlist of contenders was released by world athletics governing body IAAF.

Uganda’s Cheptegei is favorite to clinch the award courtesy of an astonishing three world records in a single year. He started the year by clinching the world’s best time over 5km (12:51), then followed it after the COVID-19 lockdown was lifted later in the year with two world track records.

I’m very honoroud that I was two times the @WorldAthletics Male Athlete of the year.

For 2020, I wish my @NNRunningTeam teammate @joshuacheptege1 all the best in this award, he has my vote! https://t.co/K3uOpb0tbv

— Eliud Kipchoge – EGH🇰🇪 (@EliudKipchoge) November 4, 2020

First to fall was the 5000m (12min, 35.36sec) then the 10000m (26min,11sec) followed, and he was not done, coming fourth in the World half marathon won by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo.

If he wins the world athletics award tonight, he will become the first Ugandan to be honored by the world athletics governing body. The awards were first presented in 1988.

This was over a decade after the great John Akii Bua, who would have been a contender then, stunned the Munich 1972 Olympics by breaking the 400m hurdles world record. Akii Bua and Stephen Kiprotich are the only Ugandans to have ever won Olympic gold medals.

On 2 September 1972, in the Olympic Stadium in Munich, Akii-Bua was drawn in Lane One for the 400m hurdles. At 4.31pm local time, he won the gold medal in an astonishing new world record time of 47.82 sec, three-tenths of a second under the world mark set by Britain’s Hemery in the 1968 Mexico Olympics.

HISTORY: Forty seven years ago in Munich, Uganda’s John Akii-Bua 🇺🇬 was the first man to run the 400m hurdles under 48 secondshttps://t.co/agO7YEMF7p

#INEOS159 #Athletics #WorldRecords #KipchogeINEOSChallenge pic.twitter.com/ldCEcGkvmZ

— Louis Jadwong (@Jadwong) October 12, 2019

Virtual awards

The annual celebration honouring the world’s best athletes will this year be a virtual event.

“It will be a celebration of the sport itself, to also honour and recognise organisations and individuals from around the world who met and overcame the unprecedented challenges, roadblocks and disruptions brought on by the global Covid-19 pandemic to ensure competitive opportunities for athletes and entertaining events for our fans across the globe,” IAAF said in a statement.

The 2019 awards

Kipchoge, the first man to run a marathon in less than two hours, and 400 metres hurdles world champion Dalilah Muhammad won last year’s World Athlete of the Year awards.

Kipchoge claimed governing body World Athletics’ 2019 year-ending prize in Monaco last year after making history when he ran the marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres (26.219 miles) in 1hr 59min 40.2sec.

The Olympic champion, who also holds the official world record of 2h01m39sec, won last year’s London marathon in April before his incredible feat in an unofficial event in Vienna.

He edged out fellow finalists Cheptegei (UGA), Sam Kendricks (USA), Noah Lyles (USA) and Warholm (NOR).

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How voting was done

There was a three-way voting process to determine the finalists. The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family cast their votes by email, while fans voted online via our social media platforms. The Council’s vote counted for 50% of the result, while the Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes each counted for 25% of the final result.

Eight awards, including those in three new categories, will be presented at the World Athletics Awards 2020, this year hosted by legendary sprint stars Sanya Richards-Ross and Ato Boldon.

SOURCE: wikipedia