MONTE-CARLO, Monaco – Usain Bolt won his 6th IAAF World Athlete of the Year Award here on Friday night (December 2).
Bolt, dressed in black jacket suit with white under shirt and brown tie and shoe, collected his award at the Salle des Etoiles in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
In his short speech, Bolt said: “This is special. It’s all for the fans, I know they don’t want me to retire, I do this for them.”
Later he tweeted: “Honoured to to be your @iaaf Athlete of the Year for the 6th time”
Bolt beat South African Wayde van Niekerk and Britain’s Mo Farah for the male award. van Niekerk won the Olympic Games 400m title in a record 43.03 seconds while Farah took the 5,000/10,000 double.
The king of the sport clocked season’s bests of 9.81 and 19.78 to win the 100m and 200m in Rio and then anchored the Jamaican team to a world-leading 37.27 to win the 4x100m. The world 100/200m record holder also won the award in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013. He is the only person to have won more than five times.
Meanwhile, Elaine Thompson, the Rio Olympic Games sprint double queen, just missed out on the Female Athlete of the Year Award, which went to Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana.
Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk was the other athlete to make the top three.
