American Ryan Crouser won every shot put event in which he competed this year ©Getty Images

The undefeated American shot putter Ryan Crouser and double Olympic medallist Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda are among the five finalists for World Athletics' Male World Athlete of the Year award, with Sweden's Daniel Ståhl among those who missed out.

An initial shortlist of 10 Olympic champions was revealed by World Athletics last month, and a three-way voting process reduced this by half.

The World Athletics Council's votes comprised 50 per cent of the result, with the "World Athletics Family" and public votes both holding a weighting of 25 per cent.

Crouser set an Olympic record of 23.30 metres in the shot put at Tokyo 2020 on his way to retaining his title, and was also the overall Diamond League champion.

He broke the world record with a 23.37m in June, and won every World Athletics-accredited outdoor and indoor event in which he participated in 2021 as he dominated the discipline.

Cheptegei clinched gold in the 5,000 metres and silver in the 10,000m in the Japanese capital.

Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge became the first man since 1980 to successfully defend his Olympic marathon title, and his time of 2 hours 8min 38sec gave him a winning margin of 80 seconds - the biggest at the Games since 1972.

Daniel Ståhl of Sweden threw a world-leading 71.40m in the discus, but failed to make the final five for Male World Athlete of the Year ©Getty Images
Daniel Ståhl of Sweden threw a world-leading 71.40m in the discus, but failed to make the final five for Male World Athlete of the Year ©Getty Images

Kipchoge also won the Enschede Marathon in The Netherlands in April.

Mondo Duplantis of Sweden still has a chance at winning the award for the second year running.

He achieved Olympic, Diamond League and European indoor titles in the pole vault.

Norway's Karsten Warholm is the other finalist, having twice broken the 400m hurdles world record set by American Kevin Young that had stood for more than 28 years.

He clocked 45.94sec to earn victory in a fiercely competitive Tokyo 2020 final, and also triumphed at the Diamond League.

Ståhl was among the five shortlisted athletes who failed to make the cut, despite winning at the Olympics and Diamond League Final and throwing a world-leading 71.40 metres this year.

Greece's Miltiadis Tentoglou led the world in the long jump with 8.60m, but also missed out.

An Olympic decathlon record 9,018 points from Canadian Damian Warner was not enough for him to make the final five, while Portugal's Pedro Pichardo - the Olympic, Diamond League and European indoor triple jump champion - and Norway's Tokyo 2020 and European Indoor 1500 metres gold medallist Jakob Ingebrigtsen failed to gain enough votes.

Olympic 100m champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs notably did not make the initial shortlist.

The Male World Athlete of the Year will be announced at the online World Athletics Awards on December 1.