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Gay voted 2007 Top Men's Track Athlete
2007 Jesse Owens Award winner Tyson Gay outsprinted 17 other men to claim the 2007 Track & Field News Athlete of the Year award in the magazine's annual poll.
A 34-member international voting panel awarded Gay 328 total votes as he finished ahead of 400-meter world champion Jeremy Wariner of the U.S. (279). American men dominated the voting with world 1,500m & 5,000m champion Bernard Lagat (6th-130 points) and world shot put champion Reese Hoffa (8th-109 points) also finishing in the top ten.
Gay, 24 during most of the ¹07 season, was given 26 1st-place selections as he collected a 96.5% score in the 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 voting system.
The double gold medalist at the '07 World Championships also ranked #1 in both the 100m and 200m in the magazine's by-event merit rankings for the '07 season. As world AOY, he also was named U.S. Athlete of the Year.
Overall, 18 different men received votes, with the other 1st-place selections going to Wariner (5) and Kenenisa Bekele, Bernard Lagat and Haile Gebrselassie (1 each).
The top 10 vote-getters, with their totals:
1. Tyson Gay (USA/sprints) 328
2. Jeremy Wariner (USA/400m) 279
3. Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia/distances) 228
4. Irving Saladino (Panama/long jump) 180
5. Asafa Powell (Jamaica/100m) 174
6. Bernard Lagat (USA/1500m-5000m) 130
7. Xiang Liu (China/110 hurdles) 110
8. Reese Hoffa (USA/shot put) 109
9. Tero Pitkämäki (Finland/javelin) 97
10. Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia/marathon) 91
Gebrselassie's World Record marathon of 2:04:26 was selected as the men's Performance of the Year.
2007 Jesse Owens Award winner and T&FN U.S. Athlete of the Year Allyson Felix was the top American vote-getter in the women's balloting with her tally of 227 points, which landed her in fourth place overall.
During the 2007 season Felix became the second woman in history to win three gold medals at a single World Outdoor Championships with her triumphs in the 200 meters, 4x100m and 4x400m relays in Osaka, Japan. Her gold medal winning 200m time was a personal-best of 21.81 seconds, which is the fastest time by a woman since 1999 and was the largest margin of victory in World Outdoor history (.53).
2006 World Athlete of the Year and Jesse Owens Award winner Sanya Richards finished 8th in the voting with 75 points. Richards posted the five-fastest 400m times by a woman this year, including the world's fastest time of 49.27 seconds, posted in Germany in winning performances at Berlin and Stuttgart. Richards also teamed with Felix in capturing the 4x400m relay gold medal at the World Outdoor Championships in Osaka, and finished the six-event IAAF Golden League Series of meets undefeated in 400m competition, winning $500,000 for her efforts.
Undefeated distance star Meseret Defar of Ethiopia finished the season unbeaten and finished first in the 2007 Women's Athlete of the Year voting. The 23-year-old Defar earned 24 votes for #1. She ended the campaign World-Ranked #1 at both the 3000- and 5000-meter distances. Her 14:16.63 5000 World Record was voted the women's Performance of the Year.
Overall, 16 women received votes. The Top 10:
1. Meseret Defar (Ethiopia/distances) 319
2. Yelena Isinbayeva (Russia/pole vault) 284
3. Blanka Vlasic (Croatia/high jump) 274
4. Allyson Felix (USA/sprints) 227
5. Carolina Klüft (Sweden/heptathlon) 205
6. Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia/distances) 84
7. Tatyana Lebedeva (Russia/long-triple jumps) 79
8. Sanya Richards (USA/400m) 75
9. Veronica Campbell (Jamaica/sprints) 67
10. Janeth Jepkosgei (Kenya/800m) 66
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