European Athletics will announce the nominees for the yearly male and female Athlete of the Year and Rising Star awards across social media on Friday and Saturday
Ten athletes have been nominated in each category based on their performances achieved since January 2018 in major European Athletics or IAAF competitions (athletes who have served a doping suspension of two years or longer are ineligible for nomination).
European Athletics will announce the male and female Rising Star nominees across Facebook and Twitter on Friday, and the ten nominees for the male and female Athlete of the Year award on Saturday.
The social media vote accounts for 25 percent of the overall vote. The media vote, the Member Federation vote and the European Athletics Expert Panel vote each account for 25 percent of the vote as well. Details of the media vote will be sent out early next week.
Fans can cast their social media vote by retweeting the graphic of the athlete on Twitter, or by liking or sharing the corresponding graphic on Facebook. One retweet, like or share equals one vote but please note that any likes cast on shared posts on Facebook are not counted.
The Twitter and Facebook votes will be combined to determine the outcome of the social media vote.
Three short-listed finalists in each category will then be announced across social media based on the combined results of the vote.
The winners will be crowned and presented with their accolades at the Golden Tracks award ceremony which will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland on Friday 26 October. The ceremony will be staged as part of the 2018 European Athletics Convention.
Germany’s Johannes Vetter and Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi were named male and female Athlete of the Year at the Golden Tracks in Vilnius, Lithuania last October while Norway’s Karsten Warholm and Ukraine’s Yulia Levchenko were crowned male and female Rising Stars.
The European Athlete of the Year awards were inaugurated in 1993 to honour Europe’s outstanding athletes and the Rising Star awards came into being in 2007 to recognise exceptional emerging talents.