Nine-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt has won the IAAF
male Athlete of the Year award for a record sixth time.
Ethiopia's Almaz Ayana, who broke the 10,000m world record
by over 14 seconds in winning Olympic gold in Rio this
summer, won the female award.
Bolt, 30, sealed the 'triple triple' in Rio, winning his third
Olympic title in each of the 100m, 200m and 4x100m.
"It's definitely a big deal," said the Jamaican of the award he
also won in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Bolt will retire next year, following the 2017 World Athletics
Championships in London.
He added: "When you get to be athlete of the year it means
that all the hard work has paid off, so if I can win it for a sixth
year means as much as the first one."
Ayana, meanwhile, broke a record set 23 years earlier when
she clocked 29 minutes 17.45 seconds in Rio.
The 25-year-old also won 5,000m bronze, and won the
Diamond Race.
Canada's Andre de Grasse, the 22-year-old who won 200m
silver and 100m bronze in Rio, was named male rising star,
while Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam, 22,
won the female award.
Harry Marra won the IAAF Coaching Achievement Award after
guiding Ashton Eaton to a second Olympic decathlon gold and
Brianne Theisen Eaton to heptathlon bronze.
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