IAAF wants you to help select Athlete of The Year

I voted for:

Male Athlete of the Year: Kenenisa Bekele 5000m WR indoors first under 12:50, 5000m and 10000m WR outdoors, 10000m Olympic Gold in Champion Record and only one loss in the 5000m (silver).

Male Performance of the Year: Kenenisa Bekele ran the last 5500m solo to break a record by Haile Gebrselassie.

Female Athlete of the Year: Yelena Slesarenko (RUS) won Won indoor title and Olympic title, had an amazing 12 meets at 2.00 or higher (6-6 3/4). Indoor best of 2.04 (6-8 1/4) and outdoors 2.06 (6-9). Not bad for a lady who is 3-4 inches shorter than her competitors-but her jumping spoke for itself!

Female Performance of the Year: Elvan Abeylegesse took down a record that several super athletes couldn't (Paula Radcliffe, Berhane Adere, Gaby Szabo). The record was demolished by over 4 seconds by Elvan in a solo run with amazing spilts.

VIPAM

Vipam,

I agree with you once more with Kenenisa Bekele but Elvan (another Turk/Ethiopian? - her performance as incredible as it was, she unfortunately faded badly at the Olympics and that may not favor in garnering vote for her at this time.

Sa Sa wrote:

Vipam,

I agree with you once more with Kenenisa Bekele but Elvan (another Turk/Ethiopian? - her performance as incredible as it was, she unfortunately faded badly at the Olympics and that may not favor in garnering vote for her at this time.

I don't see the relevance of her result at the Olympics to whether her WR run was the performance of the year. Obviously it does rule her out as Athlete of the Year. But I don't think that she was even nominated for AOY (I can no longer see the list of nominees at the iaaf site after voting).

Sa Sa

Elvan is only up for Performance of the Year and thats what I selected her for-she isn't a nominee for Athlete of the Year.

VIPAM

Sa Sa,

You are not doing justice in listing Kenenisa Bekele's mind boggling performaces as well as achievements 2004/2005 Athletics year. The following is my 2 cents

Aug 2003

Paris:****** Gold 10K

:****** Bronze 5K

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February 2004

Budapest:*** Gold 5K New World Record (INDOOR) 12:50

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March 2004

Lausanne:*** Gold Senior Men's Long Course XC

:*** Gold Senior Men's Short Course XC

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June 2004

Hengelo:*** 5K New World Record 12:37 (OUTDOOR)

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July 2004

Ostrava:*** 10K New World Record 26:20:31(OUTDOOR)

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August 2004

Athens:*** Gold 10K

:*** Bronze 5K

Luke

Nice job but Kenenisa won the silver at the Athens Olympic not the bronze and his 5000m WR was 12:37.35. One other thing none of his 2003 performances factor in for 2004 Athlete of the Year-but his 2004 season was far better than his 2003 anyway.

VIPAM

I meant that Silver, but Thanks for correcting.

Luke

Kenenisa

Yelena