IAAF announces names of candidates for 2013 World Athlete of the Year Award

Ethiopian athletes Mohammed Aman, Meseret Defar, Tirunesh Dibaba and Abeba Aregawi(Ethiopia/Sweden) have been shortlisted for the 2013 World Athlete of the Year award, the International Association of Athletics Federations  has announced.

Apart from these athletes, the men’s list includes Mo Farah of Great Britain, the second man in history to complete an Olympic and World Championship “double-double; Usain Bolt, treble gold medals winner at the World Championships in Moscow and Kenyan Wilson Kipsang, who broke the marathon world record by 15 seconds as he claimed the Berlin title last Sunday.

The women’s list also includes Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar, who added world 5,000m gold to her Olympic title, and Valerie Adams of New Zealand, who claimed her fourth world title in the women’s shot put.

Three male and three female finalists will be announced by the IAAF following an email poll among members of the “World Athletics Family“, with the winners revealed at the 2013 World Athletics Gala on 16 November.

Men

• Mohammed Aman (ETH) 
• Usain Bolt (JAM) 
• Bohdan Bondarenko (UKR)
• Ashton Eaton (USA)
• Mohamed Farah (GBR) 
• Robert Harting (GER)
• Wilson Kipsang (KEN) 
• Aleksandr Menkov (RUS)
• LaShawn Merritt (USA)
• Teddy Tamgho (FRA)

Women

• Valerie Adams (NZL)
• Abeba Aregawi (Sweden/Ethiopia) 
• Meseret Defar (ETH) 
• Tirunesh Dibaba (ETH)
• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (JAM)
• Zuzana Hejnova (CZE)
• Caterine Ibargüen (COL)
• Sandra Perkovic (CRO)
• Brianna Rollins (USA)
• Svetlana Shkolina (RUS)