Marcell Jacobs was the shock winner of the Olympic 100 metres title at Tokyo 2020 in a European record of 9.80sec and then won another gold medal in the 4x100m relay.

Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi, who tied for Olympic gold with Mutaz Barshim in his event moments before Jacobs won the 100m, also failed to earn a place among the 10 nominees.

"It's profoundly wrong," Malagò told Associated Press.

“We're very upset."

Malagò claimed the omissions amount to "a lack of respect toward our two athletes".

The 10 nominees are Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, the United States’ Ryan Crouser, Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis, Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, Portugal’s Pedro Pichardo, Sweden’s Daniel Stahl, Greece’s Miltiadis Tentoglou, Canada’s Damian Warner and Karsten Warholm, another Norwegian.

Social media in Italy has claimed that the US-born Jacobs, in particular, is the victim of a conspiracy led by World Athletics’ British President Sebastian Coe.

Jacobs had come under heavy scrutiny, mainly from the British press, after it emerged his former nutritionist, Giacomo Spazzini, is allegedly being investigated in connection with performance-enhancing substances.

When it was announced after Tokyo 2020 that British sprinter CJ Ujah had been provisionally suspended for a doping offence - almost certainly meaning Team GB will lose the Olympic silver medals they won behind Italy - Jacobs said it had made him "smile".

Stefano Mei, President of the Italian Athletics Federation, admitted that he was "amazed" and "surprised" by the non-appearance of Jacobs and Tamberi on the short list, but he would not turn it into a "tragedy".

"We take note of the choice of this jury, which embraces the six continents, but it is a judgment for an important prize," Mei, a former European 10,000m champion, told Italian news agency ANSA.

"I'm not thinking of a conspiracy.

"Will I call Coe?

"We will see in the next few days: we will think about it and certainly we will not set up a crisis unit for this."