T&FN Men's Athlete Of The Year: Tyson Gay

Tyson Gay outsprinted 17 other men to claim the 2007 Track & Field News Athlete Of The Year award, complete details on which appear in the January ’08 issue of the magazine, which is being mailed this weekend.

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).

Gay, 24 during most of the ’07 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.

Overall, 18 different men received votes, with the other 1st-place selections going to Wariner (5), and Kenenisa Bekele, Bernard Lagat & Haile Gebrselassie (1 each).

The top 10 vote-getters, with their totals:

1. Tyson Gay (US—sprints) 328

2. Jeremy Wariner (US—400m) 279

3. Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia—distances) 228

4. Irving Saladino (Panama—long jump) 180

5. Asafa Powell (Jamaica—100m) 174

6. Bernard Lagat (US—1500m/5000m) 130

7. Xiang Liu (China—110 hurdles) 110

8. Reese Hoffa (US—shot put) 109

9. Tero Pitkämäki (Finland—javelin) 97

10. Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia—10K/marathon) 91