Dibaba Wins Battle Of WR Setters

Sometimes a World Record is a “guarantee” of an Athlete Of The Year honors; other times it is not. But it wasn’t just her 3:50.07 in the 1500 that earned Genzebe Dibaba T&FN’s women’s AOY title for 2015, in no small part because she was up against another WR setter.

The 24-year-old Ethiopian also dominated the metric mile all year and added a World Champs 5000 medal as she narrowly–make that very narrowly–edged hammer thrower Anita WÅ‚odarczyk for the magazine’s top honor, making her the latest in a long list of superstars dating back to 1977 to be so honored.

Defending No. 1 WÅ‚odarczyk actually got more No. 1 votes from our international panel than did Dibaba, 17-16, but the Ethiopian distance star edged the Pole in backup votes by just enough to eke out a 3-point win.

Nobody else earned a nod as No. 1, with Dutch sprinter Dafne Schippers ending up No. 3 overall, not remotely close to the top 2.

Overall, 16 women received votes in our international panel’s voting.

Here’s the Top 10 (with events in which they made the Top 10 in our World Rankings):

To see the top ten list, click here: http://trackandfieldnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2692

Editor’s Note: The Bible of the sport, Track & Field News, annointed Genzebe Dibaba as the 2015 Women Athlete of the Year. This was a tough year to pick the top athletes, but the team at TFN did their job! If you do not have a subscription to TFN and you consider yourself an athletics fan, well, you are not a fan yet then, are you?

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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