Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt, Britain's distance running superstar Mo Farah and South Africa's Rio 2016 hero Wayde van Niekerk have been announced as the three finalists for the 2016 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Male World Athlete of the Year award.

Olympic champion Anita Wlodarczyk ended her summer in amazing fashion as she broke her hammer world record for the second time in two weeks. 

The Rio 2016 athletics programme had its third world record here this morning – a hammer throw of 82.29 metres with which Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk earned gold – and it might have had a second had Ruth Jebet run  a second faster in winning the 3,000 metres steeplechase title in 8min 59.75sec.

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and American duo Ashton Eaton and Christian Taylor are the three finalists for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Male Athlete of the Year award while Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba, Dafne Schippers of The Netherlands and Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk are in contention for the women’s prize, it has been announced.

For the second time in four days, Usain Bolt held off the challenge of Justin Gatlin of the United States here to complete his world 100/200 metre double in 19.55sec, the fastest 200m time run this year, and conclude a rare night of athletics that had already been punctuated with a historic triple jump of 18.21m by Christian Taylor, the second best ever achieved.

Anita Wlodarczyk has become the first woman to throw the hammer further than 80 metres as she recorded 81.08m at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial Throws Festival in Cetniewo, adding exactly 1.5m to the mark she set last year in Berlin.