Lol. World Athletics track athlete of the year finalist are SML and Femke Bol. What a joke. Where is Beatrice Chebet or MJW?

Wow! Good Job Corruption

Indeed corruption and racism is everywhere!

It'll take a long time for this disease to be cured🤔🤔🤔

Who , femke?

Why is it crazy? MJW coach is tainted and Chebet Agent has previous clients that are tainted.

If you keep in bad company, can't expect rewards

Well they did pick a tainted coach and the other has an tainted agent

I have seen looots of suspicions around Sydney for years now but that didnt prevent her from being a finalist. And if it was Shacari Richardson who had done what MJW did this season she would have 100% won the tittle leave alone being a finalist. Shacarri trains under the same coach as MJW.

Then this means coaches/agents being the reason is invalid. Its just favoritism

Lyles was world champion, Diamond League champion, and had the world leading time in the 200m. Wanyonyi had the same in the 800m. There weren’t any outdoor world records in men’s track running this year, so those two (and Cordell Tinch) are obvious choices.

That’s very different from the women, where Chebet and MJW both won double gold at World’s, and Chebet set a world record in the 5000.

Like I said in my previous comment) after the initial nominations it's more of a popularity contest than it is about the objective best athlete.

It seems lots of people single out Femke Bol as being "undeserving" to be a finalist, even though she's very popular in the T&F community (mainly in Europe). I wonder why nobody seems to include Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone though ?

To answer the quoted answer: Bol became World champion in the 400mH, went undefeated in that event all season (11 races), became Diamond League champion for the 5th time (with a winning streak of 30 races).

The same question answered for SML: She became World champion in the 400m and went undefeated in that event all season (8 races).

Again, the reason they are finalists is because of popularity. MJW and Chebet are clearly the better performing athletes. But it's definitely weird that Bol gets singled out for the argument that it's "unfair".

Ludicrous that Chebet is left off. 13:58 is an absurd performance plus double gold!

Chebet is from a country where the doping is so blatant that the country is on a WADA "watch" list - understatement of the year - which means the problem is rife. Not a good look for a potential prize winner.

This is racist. This is why the Femke meat riding on this board is so gross. We all know where it stems from.

This isn't the criteria per se, but who decided these nominations.

"The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50% of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and social media votes will each count for 25% of the result."

This is the council

worldathletics.org

Council

Council Page

Link:worldathletics.org/about-iaaf/structur...

Just trying to think how you would balance a vote from one of the "council" vs the social media vote (just as an example). How do you possibly do that? Because it's not a 1-1 that's for sure. In reality it seems like the classic "we want to give the people a voice" token gesture situation that get's factored in as purely a sentiment. So if you have an agenda to make Bol a finalist you can back that up by pointing to the "socials" and saying "well she was second in the fan vote so it justifies the agenda".

The winners are then decided like this

worldathletics.org

World Athlete of the Year – how it works | World Athletics

The standout athletes of the year will again be celebrated at the World Athletics Awards 2025

Link:worldathletics.org/awards/news/world-a...

"Once the finalists have been established, a fan vote will open – for all registered users of World Athletics+ – to help determine the overall World Athletes of the Year."

"To help determine" - love that. If that's really true than Bol should win in a landslide.

I also didn't realize that there was a 100k prize attached to this for the overall mens and womens winner. So just when I thought these awards doesn't really matter at all anyways I guess they do for the athletes and their agents and coaches.

And what are distance runners out there doing? taking a leisurely stroll? Distance runners are some of the toughest athletes you will ever find.

No one cares about distance runners. Why is that so hard to understand?

Just to be clear, you're getting the downvotes because Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is a sprinter, not a distance runner. But all the same, Chebet is the most deserving overall.

GTFOH. Without Gault, this whole website would dissolve and there would be no place to follow track and field. Seriously.

What's crazy about a popularity contest? Bol....very popular in an area which is more fanatical about the sport.

Not a lot of performance analysis going on.

You left off the part where Sydney ran the fastest women's 400m in nearly 40 years, breaking a major barrier, registering the second-fastest time ever, and coming just 0.18 shy of the world record. Bol's fastest hurdles time this year was ninth in history, not even a PB, and 1.17 slower than the world record. Big difference.

That said, I think you make a valid point about the finalist aspect of the voting being a popularity contest. It's difficult to explain the outcome otherwise. Compared to last year, there doesn't seem to be consistency with how the voting turned out besides Sydney. Last year, these were the nominees:

• Julien Alfred
• Beatrice Chebet
• Faith Kipyegon
• Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone
• Marileidy Paulino
• Gabby Thomas

This year, the nominees were:

• Femke Bol
• Beatrice Chebet
• Melissa Jefferson-Wooden
• Faith Kipyegon
• Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

Comparing those lists, I would say Chebet, Kipyegon, and Sydney had essentially the same seasons this year that they had last year in terms of major accomplishments and overall level of performance. Chebet won double gold and broke a WR both years, Kipyegon won gold-silver and broke the 1500m WR both years, and Sydney won individual + relay gold while running a historic time both years.

That means the biggest difference in the nominees this year were Bol and MJW compared to Alred, Paulino, and Thomas last year. Bol's 2025 season is mostly similar to Paulino's 2024; they both dominated the Diamond League, won an individual gold medal, and put down very fast times but nothing Earth-shattering (Paulino's 48.17 last year was 6th fastest in history at the time, but it was a bit slower than what Naser had run 5 years before). Like Thomas last year, Bol also won relay medals this year, but unlike Thomas, Bol's relay medals weren't gold. I'd say Bol's non-gold relay medals pretty much balance out with Paulino's 48.17 being more impressive than Bol's 51.54.

MJW took Alfred's place as the short sprint nominee. Objectively, MJW had a better 2025 than Alfred's 2024. MJW ran faster, won double-gold compared to Alfred's gold-silver, and MJW added a third gold in the relay.

Bol's 2025 was basically on par with Paulino's 2024, while MJW's 2025 was better than Alfred's 2024. Yet Alfred was a finalist over Paulino and everyone else besides Sydney last year, and Bol is the finalist over MJW and everyone else besides Sydney this year. Hard to explain such a difference without the influence of popularity/subjectivity.

Agreed. Bol continues to be.

While that is an amazing time and a memorable moment, it's not a WR (yet, she'll get there) and she was not the only woman breaking the 48 barrier this year (Paulino). In the end she ran a really fast time to become World champion, but the main accolade is the World champion part. Don't worry though, SML can still win this and she'll probably win this award (again) when she breaks that WR in the next (few) year(s).

My point was that compared to Chebet and MJW both Bol and SML have performed less, but only one is ever mentioned. I'm just saying that if Bol is there because of popularity, it's also the case for SML.