• Submitted by: manso
• Sports
• 10 / 20 / 2010

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The world governing body for track and field, IAAF, published today the list of finalists from which to choose the best athletes of the year.

According to specialists, North American sprinter Tyson Gay and Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic are the favourites.

Gay, 100m, won seven of the eight finals in which he competed. Vlasic won the IAAF World Indoor Championship, the European Athletics Championship and the Continental Cup and all the stops of the Diamond League this year.

Other aspirants are North American Christian Cantwell, shot put, Bernard Lagat, 3000m, and David Oliver, 110 hurdles meters, and Frenchmen Christophe Lemaitre, 100m and 200m, and Teddy Tamgo, triple jump.

Also listed are Australian Steven Hooker, pole vault, Kenyan David Rudisha, middle distance, Eritrean Zersenay Tadese, long-distance, and Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen, javelin thrower.

In the women's list there are Jamaican sprinter Veronica Campbell, 3000m steeplechase runner Kenyan Milcah Chemos Cheywa, Briton heptathlon athlete Jessica Ennins, North American hurdler Allyson Felix, Ethiopian long-distance runner Meseret Defar, Brazilian pole vault jumper Fabiana Murer, Belarusian shot putter Nadezhda Ostapchuk, Kazakh triple jumper Olga Rypakova and Polish hammer thrower Anita Wlodarczyk.

Voting will take place on November 7, and the winners will be announced at the IAAF Ceremony on November 21.

Source: PL