Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan and Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon have been nominated for the 2022 World Female Athlete of the Year Award.
Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge and Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali have been nominated for the 2022 World Male Athlete of the Year Award.
Oluwatobiloba Ayomide “Tobi” Amusan OON // (
listen) (born 23 April 1997) is a Nigerian track and field athlete who specialises in the 100 metres hurdles and also competes as a sprinter.[5][6] She is the current World, Commonwealth and African champion in the 100 m hurdles, as well as, the record holder in the three competitions. Amusan became the first Nigerian world champion in an athletics event when she won the 2022 World Championships 100 m hurdles gold medal, setting the current world record of 12.12 seconds in the semifinal, followed up by a wind-assisted 12.06 s in the final to take a gold.[7] She won back to back Commonwealth and African titles in 2018 and 2022 in the 100m hurdles and is also a two-time African Games champion in the event.
Read also: How young Tobi Amusan breaks record by winning gold medal world championship
In 2021, Amusan became the first Nigerian athlete to win a Diamond League title as she took the 100 m hurdles Trophy, breaking the then African record held by Glory Alozie in the process.[9] She retained her title in 2022.
Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon (born 10 January 1994)[2] is a Kenyan middle-distance runner specializing in the 1500 metres. A 2016 Rio Olympic and 2020 Tokyo Olympic champion with the Games record at the latter, she is the second woman in history to claim back-to-back Olympic titles at the event. Kipyegon has won or finished second in every major championships since age 20 in 2014, and is regarded as the greatest female 1500 metres runner in history.
She is a two-time world champion from 2017 and 2022 as well as two-time world silver medallist from 2015, when she lost only to the multiple world record-holder Genzebe Dibaba, and 2019, when she returned after giving birth in previous year. In August 2022, she achieved the second-fastest time in history, setting her consecutive Kenyan record.[7]
Kipyegon won her specialist event at the 2011 World Under-18 Championships, and 2012 World U20 Championships. At the age of 18, she did not reach semifinals of the 2012 London Olympics, but won the junior races at the 2011 and 2013 World Cross Country Championships, and finished fifth at the 2013 World Championships. She was 2014 Commonwealth Games champion, and a three-time Diamond League winner.
Kipyegon was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2017.
