PARIS, France (AFP) — Olympic 100-meter champion Noah Lyles is not one of two finalists in the male track and field athlete of the year category, World Athletics announced Monday.

Lyles won one of the closest Olympic finals in history to taking gold by five-thousandths of a second from Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson in Paris in August.

However, Lyles misses out as 200m Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo of Namibia and Norway’s 5000m gold medalist Jakob Ingebrigtsen are the only two male athletes to reach the final.

The American was aiming for the Olympic sprint double but had to settle for the 200m bronze medal behind Tebogo and US teammate Kenny Bednarek.

Lyles later revealed that he competed in the 200 meters despite testing positive for Covid-19.

In contrast, St Lucia’s Julien Alfred, winner of the Olympic women’s 100 meters final, is one of the women’s athletics finalists.

She will face American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who broke her own world record and won the 400 m hurdles Olympic championship for the second time in a row.

World Athletics said the top two places in each category (athletic, field and non-stadium) were chosen by a first round of voting consisting of votes from the World Athletics Council, officials and officials affiliated with the sport known as the “World Athletics Family”. ” and a public vote on social media.

In a new addition to this year’s awards, the final round of voting by fans of the sport, from Monday to November 10, will determine the overall World Athlete of the Year.

In field events, Olympic men’s pole vault champion and world record holder Mondo Duplantis will be the favorite to take the men’s prize.

The Swedish athlete will face Greek Miltiadis Tentoglou, who won the gold medal in the men’s long jump in Paris.

Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who broke the 37-year-old women’s world record with 2.10 meters four weeks before receiving the Olympic gold medal, will compete head-to-head with three-time Olympic heptathlon champion Belgian Nafissatou Thiam.

The women’s non-stadium prize pits world marathon record holder Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya against Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, winner of the Olympic marathon in Paris.

In the men’s category, Ecuadorian gold medalist Brian Pintado will compete with Olympic men’s marathon champion Tamirat Tola from Ethiopia in the Paris Games 20-kilometer walk race.