Kiptum, who won the London Marathon earlier this year in a time only Eliud Kipchoge had ever bettered, became the first runner to run under 2hour 01min in an official race as he clocked 2:00:35 in the Windy City.

The 23-year-old Kenyan - whose predecessor as world record holder, fellow Kenyan Kipchoge, won the men’s award in 2018 and 2019 - is a strong late contender for the award in a list issued by World Athletics that also includes United States sprinter Noah Lyles and Sweden’s pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis.

Lyles became the first athlete to complete a 100 and 200 metres double at the World Championships since Usain Bolt in 2015 and who, like the now retired Jamaican, anchored his country to gold in the 4x100m relay.

Duplantis, 23, who won the men’s award for a second time last year, earned his second world title this summer.

He also broke the world record for the sixth time in February, raising the mark to 6.22 metres at an indoor meeting in Clermont-Ferrand before adding a centimetre at the Wanda Diamond League final.

To the surprise of many in the sport, the women’s list does not contain Dutch athlete Sifan Hassan, who won the London Marathon title on her debut in April and won the women’s title in Chicago in 2:13:44, the second fastest time ever behind the 2:11:53 world record set two weeks earlier in Berlin by Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa, who is on the list.

In between her marathons Hassan, who has two Olympic and two world golds, returned to the track to pick up a world 1500m bronze and 5,000m silver in Budapest.

That said it is a hugely strong women’s selection, and the clear favourite would appear to be Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, who won world titles at 1500 and 5,000m and set world records at both those distances as well as the mile.

What Duplantis is to the men’s pole vault, US athlete Ryan Crouser is to the men’s shot put – he earned a second world title this year and then raised his own world record to 23.56m.

Norway’s 23-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen, meanwhile, has had another barnstorming year, retaining his world 5,000 title again, after losing the world 1500m title to a Scot in the outside lane, again, plus recording European records in the 1500m, mile and 3,000m as well as a world record in the 2,000m.

Ingebrigtsen’s compatriot Karsten Warholm, the 2021 men’s World A of the Year, began 2023 with a European indoor gold over 400m flat before regaining his world 400m hurdles title, winning a third world gold in total.

India’s hugely popular Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra is also likely to figure in a big way having earned his first world title and an Asian Games gold.

Greece’s Olympic long jump champion Miltiadis Tentoglou won the European indoor title before winning a first world title with a last effort of 8.52m that took him past Jamaica’s leader on 8.50m, Wayne Pinnock.

Other male nominees are Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali, who retained his world 3,000m steeplechase title and was unbeaten in six finals, Canada’s Pierce LePage, who won a first world decathlon title, and Spain’s Alvaro Martin, who won the world 20km and 35km race walk titles in Budapest.

The women’s list contains numerous athletes whose performances might have guaranteed them the title in other years – assuming the favourite Kipyegon comes home.

Guday Tsegay of Ethiopia won the world 10,000m title before claiming the Diamond League title in a world record of 14min 00.21sec, taking almost five seconds off Kipyegon’s earlier mark.

Femke Bol of The Netherlands broke the longest standing world record in the books, the women’s indoor 400m title set by Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1982, before winning her first global gold over the 400m hurdles.

Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson retained her world 200m title in 21.41sec, the second fastest time ever behind the world record of 21.34sec set by Florence Griffith-Joyner of the United States at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Jackson also won world silver in the 100m and won both sprints in the Diamond League final.

The mercurial United States sprintr Sha’Carri Richardson made a huge impact, not least on social media, in earning a first world 100m title, an achievement she supplemented with bronze in the 200m.

Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela, the 2020 women’s winner, maintained her pre-eminence in the triple jump, winning a fourth world title and adding the Diamond league champion.

That achievement was mirrored in the javelin by Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan, and – after two world silvers and at the age of just 21 – Ukraine’s high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, bravely proceeding while hearing news of her home city being further damaged by Russian shelling.

Maria Perez rivalled the achievement of her Spanish male team-mate Alvaro by winning the women’s world 20km and 35km race walk titles.

Bahrain’s naturalised Kenyan Winfed Yavi won the world 3000m steeplechase title.

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 Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube this week; a 'like' on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube or a repost on X will count as one vote.

The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50 per cent of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25 per cent of the final result.

Voting for the World Athletes of the Year closes at midnight on October 28.

At the conclusion of the voting process, five women and five men finalists will be announced by World Athletics on November 13 to 14.

The winners will be revealed on World Athletics’ social media platforms on December 11.