Three South Africans are in contention for the IAAF 2017 World Athletes of the Year awards.

This year’s IAAF world champions from London – Wayde van Niekerk (400 metres), Luvo Manyonga (long jump) and Caster Semenya (800m) – are all in contention for top honours as this week marked the opening of the voting process for the 2017 World Athletes of the Year.

The IAAF Athletics Awards 2017 evening will be held in Monaco on Friday 24 November.

The IAAF confirmed that a list of 10 men and 10 women nominees were selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of the IAAF.

The nominees for 2017 World Athlete of the Year are:

Men
Mutaz Essa Barshim (QAT), Pawel Fajdek (POL), Mohamed Farah (GBR), Sam Kendricks (USA), Elijah Manangoi (KEN), Luvo Manyonga (SA), Omar McLeod (JAM), Christian Taylor (USA), Wayde van Niekerk (SA), Johannes Vetter (GER)

Women

Almaz Ayana (ETH), Maria Lasitskene (ANA), Hellen Obiri (KEN), Sally Pearson (AUS), Sandra Perkovic (CRO), Brittney Reese (USA), Caster Semenya (SA), Ekaterini Stefanidi (GRE), Nafissatou Thiam (BEL), Anita Wlodarczyk (POL)

A three-way voting process will determine the finalists.

The IAAF Council and the IAAF Family will cast their votes by email, while fans can vote online via the IAAF’s social media platforms. Individual graphics for each nominee will be posted on Facebook and Twitter later this week; a ‘like’ or ‘favourite’ will count as one vote.

The IAAF Council’s vote will count for 50% of the result, while the IAAF Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25% of the final result.

Voting closes on 16 October. At the conclusion of the voting process, three men and three women finalists will be announced by the IAAF.

The male and female World Athletes of the Year will be announced live on stage at the IAAF Athletics Awards 2017.

Picture of Van Niekerk courtesy of Shaun Botterill/Getty Images