ATHLETICS: IAAF names its Athletes of the Year

The IAAF had a lot of action going in and around its annual gala awards event, held on Monaco on Tuesday (4th). But it recognized its Athletes of the Year with two very deserving recipients:

∙ Marathon superstar Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) was recognized as the men’s Athletes of the Year. He won both the London and Berlin marathons and set a fabulous world record of 2:01.39 in Berlin.

∙ Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen dominated the championship events of the IAAF Diamond League and the Continental Cup, winning not only her triple jump specialty, but also winning the long jump. She’s the only woman to win both the long jump and the triple jump in the same edition of the Continental Cup (and its predecessor, the World Cup). She had the world-leading triple jump performance of the year at 14.96 m (49-1) and set a national long jump record of 6.96 m (22-10).

The Rising Star awards went (correctly) to Sweden’s pole vault star Mondo Duplantis (now enrolled at LSU) and American 400 m hurdler Sydney McLaughlin, who both posted world-leading marks of 6.05 m (19-10 1/4) and 52.75, respectively.

The IAAF also made special awards for coaching to legendary distance coach Joe Vigil (USA), its Woman of the Year Award to Puerto Rico’s Evelyn Claudio and the President’s Award to former Weltklasse im Zurich meet director Andreas Brugger, who made the meet into one of the best – if not the best – invitational in the world.