World Athletics published the list of the year's best athletes. They are no fewer than 10 when one includes the Rising Stars.
My fears concerning. a last minute nomination of Lyles did not materialise. In fact, Lyles was not even nominated as best track male athlete, the title going to E. Wanyonyi who was also my favourite for this honour. In the end Duplantis and McLaughlin-Levrone were chosen for the Athlete of the Year title, a choice that I totally approve.
With hindsight, one can understand the nomination of Bol and Furlany as finalists along Duplantis and McLaughlin: they were safe choices who under no account were going to steal the spotlight from the two protagonists. Still, I think that leaving Chebet out of the finalists list was a blatant injustice.
N. Olyslagers was chosen as best woman track athlete and choice that is OK by me (but T. Davis-Woodhall would have been an equally good choice). Quite predictably, S. Sawe was nominated for best male out of stadium athlete but for his female counterpart it was M. Perez who was chosen and not P. Jepchirchir, who was my choice. But as I was pointing out in a previous post of mine, much as I dislike race-walking, I do admire M. Perez. So, I am not shocked by her nomination.
The male Rising Star was E. Serem. For me that was a non-brainer. As I have pointed out more than once, his arrival may signal the rebirth of kenyan steeplechase. Where I don't agree with WA's choice is in the nomination of J. Zhang as female Rising Star. Certainly she established a U20 world record and got a bronze medal in the World's but for me the title should have gone to Z. Yan who could not participate in Tokyo due to the WA restrictive rules.
Being a Rising Star is a promise for the future. I am rather confident about the future of this year's rising stars (barring injuries, of course). However it would be interesting to see what became of the rising stars of past decades. I will perhaps do some digging and come back to this in some future post of mine.
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