Vote for our athletes in IAAF awards, Tuwei rallies Kenyans

Athletics Kenya president Lt. Gen (Rtd)  Jackson Tuwei has urged Kenyans to vote in large numbers for the four Kenyan athletes nominated by IAAF for the athlete of the year award.

Tuwei said that it has been a long time since a Kenyan athlete won the coveted prize despite dominating in majority of international races with two- time Olympic champion David Rudisha being the last Kenyan athlete to win the award in 2010.

Last week,  IAAF nominated  10 male athletes to battle it out for the award,  including three  Kenyans; World marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge, World 1500m silver medalist Timothy Cheruiyot and IAAF Diamond league champion in 800m Emmanuel Korir.

In the women’s category, 10 athletes who excelled in different disciplines were also selected with world 3000m steeplechase record holder Kenya’s Beatrice Chepkoech making the cut.

The winner of the award is determined by the number of votes garnered with the public votes and IAAF family’s vote each counting for 25% of the result as the IAAF’s Council votes counting for 50% of the result.

On that note, Tuwei also pointed out that Kenyan athletes have come too close to winning the awards in the previous years thus the rallying call to  Kenyans to vote in large numbers this time round.

“We are first of all honoured to have four athletes from Kenya shortlisted for the awards. It has been a long time since we last won the award because in the previous editions we thought we would win but that did not happen. Therefore, my humble appeal to all Kenyans is that let us vote all our athletes in numbers,” Tuwei told Citizen Digital.

The voting is done online through the IAAF’S social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where a ‘like’ in Facebook and Instagram and a retweet in Twitter will count as one vote.

Voting is set to be closed on November 12 for female contestants and November 13 for their male counterparts.

The five finalists in each category will be announced by the IAAF with the winner set to be awarded December 4 in Monaco, France.

The annual award can be won by athletes participating within the sport of athletics under the IAAF which includes; track and field, cross country running, road running and race walking.