The list also includes Qatar’s new 400 metres hurdles sensation Abderrahman Samba and Armand "Mondo" Duplantis, the 19-year-old Swede who won the European pole vault title with 6.05 metres, which put him equal second in the all-time outdoor rankings.

The award ceremony is due to take place in Monaco on December 4.

Kipchoge and Mayer both set their world marks on the same day, September 16.

The Kenyan Olympic marathon champion, who had won in London in April, took more than a minute off the world record in Berlin as he became the first man to break two hours and two minutes in a legal race, finishing in 2 hours 01min 39sec - way inside the mark of 2:02:57 set at the 2014 Berlin race by fellow Kenyan Dennis Kimetto.

World decathlon champion Mayer set a new world mark of 9,126 points at the annual meeting in Talence.

The Frenchman’s bid to win the European title in Berlin in August had ended ignominiously as he failed to record a distance in the long jump, one of his strongest events.

But he finished 81 points clear of the previous world record of 9,045 set by Ashton Eaton of the United States at the 2015 IAAF World Championships.

Abderrahman Samba, born and raised in Saudi Arabia but now naturalised as a Qatari athlete, became only the second man to better 47 seconds for the 400m hurdles in the course of winning nine main events this season and earning double gold at the Asian Games.

The 23-year-old’s clocking of 46.98sec at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Paris was just 0.20 seconds off the world record set by Kevin Young in winning the 1992 Olympic title in Barcelona.

Before winning his European title in Berlin, Duplantis earned gold at the IAAF World Under-20 Championships at Tampere in Finland.

A world indoor record breaker is also on the list in the form of Christian Coleman of the United States, who reduced the world 60m mark to 6.34 in February before winning the IAAF World Indoor title in Birmingham the following month.

Coleman also won the IAAF Diamond League 100m title in Brussels, clocking 9.79 - the fastest run this year.

Fellow US sprinter Noah Lyles is also on the list after a season in which he retained his IAAF Diamond League 200m title, finishing unbeaten over the distance and clocking the 2018 best time of 19.65.

Lyles also won double gold at the IAAF Continental Cup event.

The list includes two field athletes in Tomas Walsh, the New Zealander who finished the season as world indoor, Commonwealth and Diamond League champion with a best of 22.67m - the farthest thrown since 2003 - and South Africa’s Luvo Manyonga,winner of the Commonwealth Games and Diamond League long jump titles.

Rounding off the 10 are two more track athletes.

Kenya’s Timothy Cheruyiot, the Diamond League 1500m champion, who won nine of his 11 races and finished top of the 2018 rankings with 3min 28.41sec.

His compatriot Emmanuel Korir was similarly dominant over 800m, winning the Diamond League and Continental Cup titles and producing the fastest time seen since 2012 with 1:42.05.

The nominations were selected by an international panel of athletics experts from all six continents and a three-way voting system will determine the winner.

The public will be able to vote via social media while the ruling IAAF Council will determine 50 per cent of the result and the IAAF Family’s votes will make up the final quarter.

Voting for the award is due to end on November 12.