Elaine Thompson-Herah was a big winner among readers of Athletics Weekly, coming away with two major awards from the British athletics magazine’s annual awards, the results of which were published on Friday (December 3).

In what the magazine said was their largest ever voter participation, Thompson-Herah, who was earlier this week named World Athletics Female Athlete of the Year for the first time, won the AW award as International Female Athlete of the Year.

At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in August, the Jamaican speedster won 100m gold in an Olympic record 10.61, 200m gold in 21.53, the second fastest time in history, and she was also member of the Jamaican quartet that won gold in the 4x100m relay in a national record of 41.02.

Thompson-Herah received twice as many votes than runner-up Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who won Olympic gold in the 5,000 and 10,000m in Tokyo this past summer and bronze in the 1500m.

The triple-Olympic champion and fastest woman alive, also came away with the award as the Mel Watman Performance of the Year for her incredible 10.54 run to win the 100m at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting Eugene, Oregon, on August 21.

It was the second fastest time in history behind the controversial 10.49 ran by American Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.

Voters preferred her performance over Karsten Warholm’s jaw-dropping world record of 45.94 in the 400m hurdles at the Olympic Games and Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim’s shared high jump gold.

Among the men, two-time Olympic marathon gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge was the readers’ choice for AW’s Male Athlete of the Year.

The Kenyan became only the third man in Olympic history to defend a marathon title, was the surprising preference over Norway’s Karsten Warholm, the World Athletics International Male Athlete of the Year.

In fact, Warholm was third among the voters as Canada’s Andre DeGrasse was their second choice.

There were also surprises in the voting for best International Junior Male and Female Athletes of the Year.

French sprint hurdler Sasha Zhoya was name International Junior Male. The youngster broke the world record for the 110m hurdles at the World U20 Championships in Kenya.

He topped the vote over American sprinter Erriyon Knighton, who broke both of Usain Bolt’s U18 and U20 200m records earlier this year.

Swedish triple jumper Gabriel Wallmark finished third in the voting.

The surprise among the women was that Christine Mboma of Namibia won the voters’ hearts over American rising star Athing Mu, who won 800m and 4x400m gold at the Summer Games.

Jamaica’s 4x100m gold medalist Briana Williams was third in the voting.