Two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge is among six sportsmen who have been nominated for this year's Laureus Awards.
The world marathon record holder will battle other sports giants including Polish striker Robert Lewandowski of Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich, Formula One champion Max Verstappen of the Netherlands, and recently-retired American football legend Tom Brady.
Others nominated for the top gong include world number one tennis superstar Novak Djokovic of Serbia and American swimmer Caeleb Dressel, who won five gold medals at last year's Tokyo Olympics.
Kipchoge's nomination comes a week after he was feted at the SOYA Awards in Bukhungu Stadium, Kakamega for his exceptional and consistent performances across his 17-year athletics career.
Indeed, an eighth-place finish at the London Marathon in 2020 now seems like a blip in an otherwise fruitful career that began in 2003 with a first-place finish in the junior race at the World Cross Country Championship in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Seventeen years later and Kipchoge has etched himself in history books as the only man to run a marathon under two hours courtesy of the 1:59:49 he clocked in 2019 in Vienna, Austria during the INEOS 1:59 challenge.
He successfully defended his Olympic title at the Tokyo Olympics, shaving off six seconds from the 2:08:44 he timed when he first won at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
The 42-year-old has subsequently underlined his intentions to once again make history as the first man to win three consecutive marathon titles at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Part of his achievements in 2021 also includes an appearance at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland where he urged world leaders to do everything in their power to fight climate change and ensure that coming generations are able to fulfill their potential.
The 22-year-old Laureus Awards is an annual ceremony to fete and honour sportspersons and teams that have used sports to create change on and off the field by virtue of their performances.
Were Kipchoge to win it, he would become the first male African athlete to do so and the third ever from the continent after fellow countrywoman Vivian Cheruiyot and Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba in 2012 and 2015, respectively.
