European Athletics (EAA) – News – Thorkildsen, Vlašić and Ennis nominated for 2010 World Athlete of the Year Awards

Europe is well represented on the short lists for the 2010 World Athlete of the Year Awards. Norway’s Andreas Thorkildsen is among the five male contenders while Croatia’s 2010 European Athlete of the Year Blanka Vlašić is one of the female candidates, along with Great Britain’s Jessica Ennis.

Thorkildsen may have a tough job to trump the claims of Kenya’s David Rudisha despite being the best javelin thrower in the world by a large margin and retaining his European title in Barcelona.

Rudisha was unbeaten in 2010 and set two 800m world records.

However, in many people’s eyes, high jumper Vlašić is the favourite for the women’s award as she not only won at all seven Samsung Diamond League meets, she also took the World Indoor Championships and European Athletics Championships gold medals and had the best performance in the world this year when she went over 2.06m indoors.

Multi-event star Ennis also got gold medals at the World Indoor Championships, in the pentathlon, and the 2010 European Athletics Championships, in the outdoor discipline of the heptathlon which she won with a world-leading tally of 6823 points.

The short lists were announced after a three-week poll which combined online votes from track and field fans around the world and also email votes from the IAAF Family.

The IAAF Family vote consisted of a list of 1,786 representatives including IAAF and IAF Council Members, IAAF Member Federations, IAAF Committee & Commission Members, IAAF meeting directors, IAAF Ambassadors, leading athletes, athletes’ representatives, IAAF staff  and selected members of the international media.

The winners of the 2010 World Athlete of the Year Awards will be announced live, on stage, during the 2010 World Athletics Gala, which will take place in Monaco, on 21 November 2010.

The complete list of male finalists (in alphabetical order) is:

Tyson Gay USA
David Oliver USA
David Rudisha KEN
Zersenay Tadese ERI
Andreas Thorkildsen NOR

The complete list of female finalists is:
Veronica Campbell-Brown JAM
Milcah Chemos Cheywa KEN
Jessica Ennis GBR
Allyson Felix USA
Blanka Vlašić CRO

European Athletics (EAA) – News –