Neeraj Chopra In Contention for Male Athlete Of The Year Award

World champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra has been nominated by World Athletics for the Male Athlete of the Year Award. The much-decorated Indian athlete recently went on to defend his gold medal from the Jakarta Asian Games at Hangzhou and over the last two years, has been one of the most successful Indian athletes. Besides Neeraj, USA's Ryan Crouser and Noah Lyles, Sweden's Mondo Duplantis, Morocco's Soufiane El Bakkali, Norway's Jakob Ingebrigsten, Kenya's Kelvin Kiptum, Canada's Pierce LePage and Spain's Alvaro Martin are some of the other contenders for the title.

The athletes shortlisted for the award were selected by an international panel of experts, consisting of representatives from all six continental areas of World Athletics.

The polling process has begun and the finalists will be decided following a three-way voting process with the winners being declared on World Athletics' social media platforms on December 11.

The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics' members can vote by email, while fans can cast their votes online through World Athletics' social media platforms.

According to a WA press release, the council's vote will count for 50% of the result, while the members' and the public's votes will count for 25% of the final result each.

In Hangzhou, Neeraj bagged the gold with his season's best throw of 88.88m. At one point, he was behind compatriot Kishore Jena but quickly made a comeback to win the gold. Jena settled for silver.

India's Asian Games campaign ended with 107 medals, the country's best ever outing at the continental event.

Earlier this year, Neeraj made history by becoming the first Indian to win gold at the World Athletics Championships. He finished second in the Diamond League finals, having won it last year. He is also the only Indian to ever win a Diamond League final.