Elaine Thompson-Herah has again been nominated for the Female World Athlete of the Year Award. Thompson-Herah, who repeated her 2016 Olympic sprint double this year in Tokyo, was nominated alongside 9 other Olympic gold medal winners including 3 who set world records during 2021.

After finishing third in both the 100 and 200 metres at Jamaica’s National Championships in June, Thompson-Herah accelerated to the second-fastest times in both events to do the double in Tokyo – 10.61 and 21.53 seconds. Not content, she cut the Jamaican 100 metres national record to 10.54 seconds in Eugene in her first race after the Olympics.

She lost just once more after Tokyo, to compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser Price in Brussels and established a new level of consistency with 14 sub-11 clockings. Notably, she has zoomed past the 10.7 seconds barrier on four occasions.

The 29-year-old improved two high-quality national records. In the 100 metres, the old mark was set in June by Fraser Pryce at 10.63 seconds in Kingston. In the 200, the record was 21.64 seconds by Merlene Ottey in Brussels 30 years ago.

This is the third time Thompson-Herah has been nominated for the sport’s top award. She was previously among the nominees in 2016 and 2020.

Competition for the award will be stiff as Sydney McLaughlin, Yulimar Rojas, Sifan Hassan all set world records in 2021. McLaughlin, undefeated in the 400-metre hurdles, became the first woman to break 52 seconds with a time of 51.90 seconds at the US Olympic trials. In Tokyo, she was even faster at 51.46 seconds. Rojas, the lanky Venezuelan, triple jumped 15.67 metres to erase a 26-year-old mark by 17 centimetres in the last round.

Hassan tried an audacious triple at the Olympics, winning the 5,000 and 10,000 metres and adding the bronze medal in the 1500 metres. Undefeated in the longer events, Hassan set a world record in the 10,000 metres – 29 minutes 6.82 seconds on June 6.

It was broken days later by the eventual Olympic bronze medallist, Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia.

According to World Athletics, a three-way voting process will determine the finalists. The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family will cast their votes by email, while fans can vote online via the World Athletics social media platforms. Individual graphics for each nominee will be posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram this week; a ‘like’ on Facebook and Instagram or a retweet on Twitter will count as one vote.

The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50% of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25% of the final result.

The female and male World Athletes of the Year will be announced live at the World Athletics Awards 2021 in December.