Fair or Foul: Joshua Cheptegei and Letesenbet Gidey both are just #3 in AW AOY awards

Yes Mondo and Joshua are skinny girlie men but calling Warholm female is a bit of a stretch

I agree with Mondo being #1... Warholm kept the world interested in Track for a big portion of the pandemic, but Cheptegei surpassed him with the two world records when Warholm continued to fall short.

Women's rankings were very, very difficult.. no clear winner here, as everyone lost races, etc.

I love athletics. I love track. But watching someone chase a blinking light around a track, even at WR pace, is boring. It's not exciting. It feels manufactured.

Cheptegai is a victim of this. I'd rather watch Walholm go out in a 400MH impossibly fast and try to hang on.

AW is British. So their preferences are

UK - Europe - US - Africa

or for some readers

UK - US - Europe - Africa

Standard Setter wrote:

I agree with Mondo being #1... Warholm kept the world interested in Track for a big portion of the pandemic, but Cheptegei surpassed him with the two world records when Warholm continued to fall short.

Women's rankings were very, very difficult.. no clear winner here, as everyone lost races, etc.

Put to rest two legendary wr’s on the track with a 5k road wr to boot. 4th in a debut half marathon in the world champs.

rojo wrote:

International Female Athlete

1 Mondo Duplantis

2 Karsten Warholm

3 Joshua Cheptegei

International Female Athlete

1 Sifan Hassan

2 Brigid Kosgei

3 Letesenbet Gidey

I'm sorry. Cheptegei has to be #2 at the worst for me. As for Gidey, I guess I shouldn't have been shocked as TFN also didn't even have her in their top 3. Hassan had a good year running 1437/2937 but t he hour WR did nothing for me and she was a DNF in Monaco. I think at a minimum they need to wait until Gidey runs the half this weekend before handing out any awards.

https://athleticsweekly.com/athletics-news/duplantis-reekie-aw-awards-1039937946/https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10319888

What!!!??? this is a stupid list

This should be criminal. Don't get me wrong, Mondo Duplantis and Karsten Warholm have had amazing seasons. Karsten Warholm has repeatedly and consistently produced world-record threatening times at 46.87, 47.07, 47.08, 47.10, and a world record in the 300m hurdles. Okay, stellar season.

The argument for Mondo Duplantis to be the athlete of the year is certainly understandable and justified, although I still disagree with this. I suspect that arises from my own bias of distance running records to be more significant. However, you have to give it to Mondo, two official world records and consistently placing the best in international competitions.

Joshua broke two world records. Now, I suspect the reason why he isn't placed higher on the list is that he hasn't competed for an insane amount in 2020. However, when he has competed, he has made it matter. I don't think that Chep should be penalized for this when he broke two long-standing records of Bekele, who might as well be considered the greatest distance runner of all-time. I believe by making this distinction, we're discouraging people from quality record attempts. In the pole-vault and field events, it's much easier to recover from a world-record attempt than it is in a 5k or 10k. While Mondo can compete for, and may even in practice be jumping higher than the world record, Chep and distance runners, in general, have so few opportunities to challenge world records. It literally took a pandemic to break the 5k and 10k. If you look at the pole-vault world record progressions, the longest holder is Bubka, who broke his own record 17 times(?). No distance runner has broken their world record, I'm sure, >5 times.

Ultimately, I understand that Warholm is producing many more times than Chep, but it makes no sense when Chep has broken 2 long-standing world records. World records should have a much greater weight than multiple sub-world record runs. And Mondo is a GOAT, but I think in this case, just by the above paragraph, that Chep should ultimately be in first or at the minimum, they should share.

rojo wrote:

International Female Athlete

1 Mondo Duplantis

2 Karsten Warholm

3 Joshua Cheptegei

International Female Athlete

1 Sifan Hassan

2 Brigid Kosgei

3 Letesenbet Gidey

I'm sorry. Cheptegei has to be #2 at the worst for me. As for Gidey, I guess I shouldn't have been shocked as TFN also didn't even have her in their top 3. Hassan had a good year running 1437/2937 but t he hour WR did nothing for me and she was a DNF in Monaco. I think at a minimum they need to wait until Gidey runs the half this weekend before handing out any awards.

https://athleticsweekly.com/athletics-news/duplantis-reekie-aw-awards-1039937946/https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10319888

I can only guess that two things impacted this - footwear and wavelight. I think the perception is that footwear technology has made such an impact (even though on the track I don't believe this to be true as it is on the roads) that it has cheapened the records - though I believe wavelight has a far bigger impact (one that we can't quantify and really have little understanding of).

Despite this, both records were ratified and because of that it should be a no-brainer - the court of popular opinion though clearly thinks otherwise.

Are you sure both were ratified? Last time I checked, the 10,000 m WR still belonged to KB.

That is INSANE. As others have said, Cheptegei broke 2 world records. Warholm broke 0. Mondo was amazing and I guess a strong case can be made for him, although I’d still put Cheptegei #1.

As for the women, wtf? Why is Sifan first? She ran a good 10k, but thats about it. She DNF’d the diamond league race where Gidey was second. The one hour record was weak. That’s really weird to rank her first. To me it’s (in no particular order) Gidey, Kipyegon, Kosgei, Obiri. No Sifan at all. Gidey #1 for sure if she beats the half this weekend, and for sure above Kosgei if she beats Kosgei’s time from earlier this year, since 5,000 WR > London win IMO.

Really weird lists.

jiggymeister wrote:

Are you sure both were ratified? Last time I checked, the 10,000 m WR still belonged to KB.

It's pending ratification - same way that Gidey's record is still pending. I would guess though that this is just an issue of time and formality. I can't see or don't know of anything that would stop this?

Either way I don't see how JC doesn't win this unless this is some kind of faint jab back at technology (shoes and wavelight) - I mean he smashed the WRs of the greatest distance runner of all time (and still the greatest). In a year where nothing was up to actually win, I can't see what more he could possibly have done. It's a bizarre decision that can only be explained by the above IMO.

True and true.

rojo wrote:

International Female Athlete

1 Mondo Duplantis

2 Karsten Warholm

3 Joshua Cheptegei

International Female Athlete

1 Sifan Hassan

2 Brigid Kosgei

3 Letesenbet Gidey

I'm sorry. Cheptegei has to be #2 at the worst for me. As for Gidey, I guess I shouldn't have been shocked as TFN also didn't even have her in their top 3. Hassan had a good year running 1437/2937 but t he hour WR did nothing for me and she was a DNF in Monaco. I think at a minimum they need to wait until Gidey runs the half this weekend before handing out any awards.

https://athleticsweekly.com/athletics-news/duplantis-reekie-aw-awards-1039937946/https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10319888

Cheptegei shouldn't even be on this list with Warholm. Seeing that by natural default Cheptegei has an inherited myostatin deficiency at some level which enables him to run that fast.

Don't compare NON myostatin deficient athletes like Warholm with obviously myostatin deficient athletes like CHeptegei.

CHeptegei should be on the myostatin deficient male athlete of the year list. Along with all of the other myostatin deficient athletes.

This list is something that have to do with the suspicious mind that all the world is looking at every performance by arficans athlets.

Lets be honest, in another world performance like Cheptegei own or Kosgei or Gidey would be

looked in a different way!!!

But nowdays with at least 5 or 6 athlets that can delivery the same performance at every race (just look what is happening on road race) and even break the WR. Every performance in distance running is not AWESOME anymore but is become ORDINARY .

Bluesky wrote:

This list is something that have to do with the suspicious mind that all the world is looking at every performance by arficans athlets.

Lets be honest, in another world performance like Cheptegei own or Kosgei or Gidey would be

looked in a different way!!!

But nowdays with at least 5 or 6 athlets that can delivery the same performance at every race (just look what is happening on road race) and even break the WR. Every performance in distance running is not AWESOME anymore but is become ORDINARY .

Are we able to get a broken English to English translation for what you just said ?

Is there some sort of google translator to translate your statement to English?