The President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Tonobok Okowa, is leading a campaign for massive votes from Nigerians for Tobi Amusan.
Amusan is among 10 nominees vying for the biggest individual athletics award in the world.
The ceremony holds in December and Okowa wants Amusan to win the ultimate prize.
The Nigerian 100 metres hurdler will battle other top athletes, including Jamaica’s speed star, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, America’s Chase Ealey, Kimberly Garcia (Peru), Shericka Jackson (Jamaica), Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) and Shaunae Miller-Uibo (Bahrain).
Amusan made big headlines across the globe in July this year, when she broke the World Record twice on her way to winning the gold medal in the 100 metres hurdles.
A few days after setting a world 100 metres hurdles record of 12.12 seconds at the World Championship in Oregon, United States, Amusan clinched a gold medal at Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in England before adding the Diamond League gold medal in Zurich.
Amusan, born on April 23, 1997, is the African 100 metres hurdles champion. She had finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics and was also a fourth-place finisher at the 2019 World Championships.
The Ogun State-born Amusan, who won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games as well as 2017 NCAA champion, could become the first Nigerian to win the World Athletics Athlete of the Year award.
Amusan is among the best 10 women in the world for the outgoing year.
“Through the grace of God, I have achieved so many ‘firsts by a Nigerian’ and this is yet another one. The first Nigerian ever to reach this height” Amusan said.
The athlete wrote on her facebook wall that she has won the Nigeria version of the Award twice before but this was the first time she was getting an international nomination.
A three-way voting process will determine the finalists. The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family will cast their votes by email. While fans can vote online via the World Athletics social media platforms.
Individual graphics for each nominee will be posted on Social media;. A ‘like’ on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube or a retweet on Twitter will count as one vote.
The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50 percent of the result. While the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25 percent of the final result.
Voting for the World Athletes of the Year closes at midnight on Monday, October 31.
After the voting process, the nominees will be pruned down to five women and five men by World Athletics.
World Athletics will be reveal the winners on World Athletics’ social media platforms in December.
For the AFN boss, Nigerians have a great role to play by voting massively for Amusan.
“2022 has been a very successful year for Nigerian athletes and Tobi is the icing on the cake. The success story of the incredible season we have had,” Okowa stated yesterday.
“No Nigerian athlete has ever made it to this level. We now need to go a step further”. Okowa concluded.
