McLaughlin-Levrone, Duplantis world athletes of 2022

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Armand Duplantis have been named world athletes of the year at the World Athletics Awards.

American McLaughlin-Levrone, 23, broke her own world record by almost three-quarters of a second as she won world 400m hurdles gold in July. She clocked 50.68 seconds in Oregon, where she also won 4x400m gold. Sweden’s Duplantis won the world pole vault indoor and outdoor double in 2022.

The 23-year-old, who won the award in 2020, also improved his own world record to 6.21m and claimed the Diamond League and European crowns.

“Going into the year, I had really high expectations of myself and I had some really big goals,” said Duplantis.

“I wanted to win the world indoors, the world outdoors, the Europeans, the Diamond League final, and I wanted to break the world record a few times.

“I was able to do that and it was a bonus – the cherry on top  to do be able to do it [break the world record] at the right times, to do it at world indoors and do it at world outdoors. I can’t complain.”

McLaughlin-Levrone said: “All of my goals were accomplished this year. We were able to accomplish everything we set out to do. It couldn’t have been any better, and I was so grateful that I was able to produce that performance in front of a home crowd.”

Earlier in the week, Great Britain pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw was named joint winner of the fair play award with American Katie Nageotte. Bradshaw was injured when her pole snapped during her warm-up in Oregon, with eventual gold medallist Nageotte going over to support her.

Knowing she would not be able to contend for a place in the final, Olympic bronze medallist Bradshaw withdrew before the competition started, allowing another athlete to advance. The 31-year-old later received abuse on social media for withdrawing, with Nageotte taking to Twitter to defend her.

Britain’s former two-time world 4x400m medallist Donna Fraser won the woman of the year award for her work in championing gender equality and the empowerment of women in athletics. (BBC)