Elaine Thompson-Herah is the Female World Athlete of the Year. Thompson-Herah, who repeated her 2016 Olympic sprint double this year in Tokyo, was presented with her award at an online World Athletics ceremony.

After finishing third in both the 100m and 200m at Jamaica’s National Championships in June, Thompson-Herah delivered the second-fastest times in both events to capture the 100m and 200m titles in Tokyo – 10.61 and 21.53 seconds respectively. Soon afterwards, she sliced the Jamaican 100m national record to 10.54 seconds in Eugene in her first race after the Olympic Games.

She lost just once more after Tokyo, to compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce in Brussels and zipped past the 10.7 barrier on four occasions. Overall, she piled up 13 sub-11 times.

This is the third time the 29-year-old Thompson-Herah had been a finalist in balloting for the sport’s top award. She had previously attained this distinction in 2016 and 2020.

Naturally, Thompson-Herah was buoyant. “I went very close to the world record so you know, anything is possible. No spikes hanging up any time soon!”

Among her rivals for the award were Sydney McLaughlin and Yulimar Rojas, who both set world records in Tokyo. McLaughlin, undefeated in the 400m hurdles, became the first woman in history 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.

The COVID-19 pandemic eliminated crowd support in Tokyo and Thompson-Herah hopes things will be different next year.

“The World Championships in Oregon is most definitely my next big target. It is close to home, I hope friends and family can come out and watch. I hope I get some crowd as well. That couldn’t happen in Tokyo but hopefully in Eugene I can get my friends and family to come and cheer me on”, she said.

A three-way voting process made Thompson-Herah the third Jamaican to win the award after Merlene Ottey in 1990 and Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce in 2013. The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family cast their votes by email, while fans voted online via the World Athletics social media platforms.

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

Norway’s Karsten Warholm was selected as Men’s Athlete of the Year after a campaign that saw him lower the 400m hurdles world record twice. Warholm snipped Kevin Young’s 1992 mark of 46.78 seconds to 46.70 on July 1. Then, in Tokyo, he shattered the 46-second barrier, with an unprecedented time of 45.94.