Nine-time Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt ended 2016 being named the IAAF's male athlete of the year for a sixth time. The Jamaican took his overall total to nine Olympic gold medals at Rio 2016 with his third 100 metres, 200m and 4x100m relay hat-trick and was nominated for the award alongside Mo Farah and David Rudisha. Bolt was presented the award – which he had already won more times than anyone else, and claimed on five occasions between 2008 and 2013 – by IAAF president Sebastian Coe in Monaco, while the female athlete of the year gong went to Ethiopia's Almaz Ayana.
He said; "I live for the moments when I walk into a stadium and I hear a loud roar and Rio was outstanding."
Ayana was the 10,000m champion in Rio, and also secured bronze in the 5,000m.
Canada's Rio 200m silver and 100m bronze medallist Andre De Grasse was named male rising star of the year, with Belgian Nafissatou Thiam, the heptathlon champion at the Games in Brazil, taking the women's award.
American Harry Marra, who guided decathlete Ashton Eaton to his second successive Olympic gold over the summer, was given the award for the coaching achievement, while the president's award, recognising great service to athletics, went to Tegla Loroupe, the chef de mission for the Refugee Olympic Team in Rio.
