Usain Bolt is a candidate for track and field’s athlete of the year award, as expected, but he’s by no means a sure bet to take home the title for the fifth time in six years.
Bolt had a stellar 2013, winning the 100 meters, 200 and 4x100 relay gold at the World Championships and losing one race all season, but he did not break a world record. He graded his season an eight out of 10.
“I won, but I wouldn’t say it was in Usain Bolt fashion,” he said earlier this month.
Bolt won the IAAF World Athlete of the Year Award in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. Kenyan David Rudisha, the world record holder in the 800 meters, won in 2010, when Bolt was hampered by injury and lost a 100 to Tyson Gay.
Who could beat Bolt this year? Here are the other nine men up for the award:
Mohammed Aman (ETH) -- World champion, 800 meters
Bohdan Bondarenko (UKR) -- World champion, high jump
Ashton Eaton (USA) -- World champion, decathlon
Mohamed Farah (GBR) -- World champion, 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters
Robert Harting (GER) -- World champion, shot put
Wilson Kipsang (KEN) -- Berlin Marathon winner in world record time
Aleksandr Menkov (RUS) -- World champion, long jump
LaShawn Merritt (USA) -- World champion, 400 meters
Teddy Tamgho (FRA) -- World champion, triple jump
The strongest candidates appear to be Bondarenko, Farah and Kipsang.
Bondarenko was the only male track and field athlete to win a specific event at five Diamond League meetings this season and capture a world championship. The lanky Ukrainian also made several failed attempts to break Javier Sotomayor‘s world record of 2.45 meters from 1993.
Farah was the only man other than Bolt to win two individual world championships in 2013. The Somalian-born, Oregon-trained Brit became the first man to sweep the 5,000 and 10,000 at worlds the year after sweeping the events at the Olympics.
The top candidate, though, could very well be Kipsang. The Kenyan became the only track and field athlete to break a world record this year Sunday, winning the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours, three minutes, 23 seconds.
The last time Bolt did not take World Athlete of the Year, the winner, Rudisha, also broke a world record (twice, actually) in 2010.
The women’s winner will likely be Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who, like countryman Bolt, swept the 100, 200 and 4x100 at worlds. She became the second woman to win three golds at a single worlds, joining Allyson Felix.
Fraser-Pryce starred on the Diamond League circuit, too, winning the season titles in the 100 and the 200. She posted the world’s three fastest times of 2013 in the 100 and the two fastest in the 200.
The other women’s candidates:
Valerie Adams (NZL) -- World champion, shot put
Abeba Aregawi (SWE) -- World champion, 1,500 meters
Meseret Defar (ETH) -- World champion, 5,000 meters
Tirunesh Dibaba (ETH) -- World champion, 10,000 meters
Zuzana Hejnova (CZE) -- World champion, 400-meter hurdles
Caterine Ibargüen (COL) -- World champion, triple jump
Sandra Perkovic (CRO) -- World champion, discus
Brianna Rollins (USA) -- World champion, 100-meter hurdles
Svetlana Shkolina (RUS) -- World champion, high jump
Defar is the only nominee to previously win the award (2007). Felix, whose 2013 was cut short by injury, won the award in 2012 after taking triple gold at the Olympics. If Fraser-Pryce wins, she’ll become the second Jamaican woman to take it, joining Merlene Ottey (1990).
Her biggest competition would appear to be throwers. Adams posted the six farthest throws in the world this year and won the Diamond League season title in the shot put. Perkovic won all seven Diamond League meets this year with the five farthest discus throws in the world.
There’s also Hejnova, who won seven of eight Diamond League races in the 400 hurdles and posted seven of the eight fastest times of the year.
The lists will be narrowed to three finalists for each award after an email poll of track and field officials closes Oct. 27. The winners will be announced Nov. 16 after a council decision.