Who should win men's athlete of the year?

Lyles. Double gold + relay gold and has got into the mainstream. Unless Kiptum runs sub 2 in Chicago

Lyles, clearly. The triple gold, the 100m is the marquee event in track and field, and he races a good amount on the circuit.

kerr. he is "the man who beat the man". as they say in boxing for the lineal championship

So far Jakob Ingrebritsen is the most deserving.

The problem with Mondo is that he is just so much better he has no competition so it's hard to get excited about his performances. It's just ok, another Mondo Gold, another WR. Next.

I agree with your order.

Bekele, literally.

You forgot about Ryan Crouser. Set a world record and has multiple top 10 of all time throws.

Between Jakob and Mondo.

It’s not his fault that he is so far above the competition. He is now by far the greatest of all time in his event with ludicrous consistency where he nails a 6 metre clearance in what feels like 90%+ of his competitions. Only 2 other vaulters in history are even remotely close to him and he has an Ed Moses style dominance of the event.

World record and wins in both Worlds and Diamond League finals puts him number 1 for me.

Always the prob with awards.. Lyles had a great year but did not dominate throughout the year like Jakob and didn't set wrs. He ran well in Budapest but his 100m isn't even a world lead and he didn't pb in anything. Not sure relays count as it's about team depth and not the indiv. He took the baton in 1st place and held (extended) the lead. I'm a distance fan and would say it's clearly Jakob who was only beaten once and set multiple wrs and European records and paced everyone else to records too.

Mondo cool but PV is a sport of privilege.. there are more active runners in oregon than pole vaulters on the planet..

No one listed here. It will be a male athlete from a major sport that wins the ESPY male athlete of the year.

To expand upon this...

Crouser has nine of the top ten performances all time, four of which are from this year, and the only spot he doesn't have is from current competitor and the clear #2 GOAT in the event, Joe Kovacs. That's the highest percentage of top ten all time marks of any event but the U.S. men's 10 for 10 in the 4x400.

I'm not handing Crouser 'Athlete of the Year', but leaving him out of the discussion is kinda silly.

Andrew Niemi

3 gold is better than 1...

I think Lyles needed to run a faster time. His 9.83 and 19.47 aren't high enough on the all-time lists for me. Jakob broke two world records, 2nd all-time in the mile, 3rd all-time in the 3k, and moved up to 4th all-time in the 1500. He won a gold and a silver. Lyles is fortunate there's a relay for his event group and that he's from a country with other good sprinters to help him win. And Lyles didn't win the Diamond league like Jakob did. If you take Lyles' season bests this year he's 15th best all time in the 100, and 4th in the 200. Jakob put up better all-time marks and still won gold at worlds (and silver barely). If Jakob had beaten Kerr it would be easy to choose, but here we are.

What's hurting Duplontis, is he can only do the pole vault. Lyles and Jakob can span 2+ events.

Pardon?

Anyway, if Jakob had won the 1500m it would be him. He didn’t, and so it is Lyles.

Lyles did not break of challenge any WRs.

Jakob.

*3rd

And to another poster: Lyles did run a PB in the 100 this year, and is tied for the WL in that event.

Regardless of whether it’s totally fair, I can see Kipyegon forcing Jakob out of contention because they occupy the same event space. Mondo could very well be overlooked because we’re already accustomed to this level of performance from him. So I think the athletes of the year will be Kipyegon and either Lyles or Crouser, depending on whether they favor marquee events or setting the two best marks all time.