Meseret Defar leads IAAF Athlete of the Year polls
Meseret Defar of Ethiopia is leading the International Association of Athletics (IAAF) Woman Athlete of the Year according to the polls. Defar has a significant lead over Fabiana Murer of Brazil, World Indoor pole vault champion, and Blanka Vlasic, who won
the high jump competition in the European Championships.
Every year the IAAF selects ten men and ten women as candidates for Athlete of the Year. Votes are compiled from the public to establish a top three. The three finalists are presented to a Special Jury of the International Athletic Foundation, who then makes
the final selection.
This year the awards for male and female Athlete of the Year will be presented at the World Athletic Gala in Monte-Carlo on 21 November.
Defar, who became the first Ethiopian woman to win the IAAF Athlete of the Year award in 2007, is a long distance runner, specializing in the 3000m and the 5000m. She holds the world indoor record in the 2 mile, 3000m, and the 5000m, and she broke the world
record in the 5000m in 2006, but lost it to fellow Ethiopian, Tirunesh Dibab, in 2008. In 2004 she won the gold medal in the 5000m at the Olympic Games in Athens, and she took bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games.
This year she won gold in the 3000m at the World Indoor Championships in Doha, her third straight gold at the event, and she also took gold at the Continental Cup in Split. She took silver in the 5000m at the African Championships in Nairobi, and became
the first three-time women’s Carlsbad 5000m champion in Carlsbad, California.
She is also the current United Nations Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador.
Last year 400m runner, Sanya Richards, won the Athlete of the Year for the United States, and pole vaulter, Yelena Isinbayeva, of Russia won it the year before that.
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