{"id":9786,"date":"2015-11-27T07:45:12","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T12:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=9786"},"modified":"2015-11-27T07:45:12","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T12:45:12","slug":"genzebe-dibaba-receives-2015-iaaf-world-womens-athlete-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/9786","title":{"rendered":"Genzebe Dibaba Receives 2015 IAAF World Women\u2019s Athlete Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Genzebe_Dibaba_by_Augustas_Didzgalvis\"<\/a>The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has named Ethiopian middle and long distance runner Genzebe Dibaba as the female IAAF World Athlete of the Year 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

24-year-old Dibaba earned the award on Thursday after a stellar year on the tracks. In July, she broke the 1500 meters world record in Monaco at a time of three minutes and 50.07 seconds.<\/p>\n

She also broke a 12-year African record for 1500m in Barcelona after finishing at a time of 3:54:11.<\/p>\n

Dibaba won gold in the 2015 World Championships in Beijing after winning all three of the 1500m races she competed in. She also won a bronze medal in the 5000m event in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Dibaba, younger sister of the legendary athlete Tirunesh, is the second Ethiopian woman<\/a> to win the IAAF honor. Meseret Defar won the prestigious award in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels so good to be the World Athlete of the Year,\u201d Dibaba said. \u201cI am humbled and honored to receive this award from the IAAF\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter being the a finalist and narrowly missing out on this award one year ago, I am very proud to be recognized by the fans and experts of our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dibaba said she enjoyed competing in events across the world. She paid a tribute to fellow athletes Dafine Schippers and Anita Wlodarczyk. Both athletes were finalists for the IAAF award.<\/p>\n

Dibaba also thanked those that voted for her to win the award. She expressed gratitude to her coaches, sisters, agents and \u201call the people from Ethiopia!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus in 2016 will be the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland and as preparation for that I will try to break the world indoor mile record in Stockholm on 17 February,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The record that Dibaba is looking to break was set a time of 4:17:14 by Romanian athlete Doina Melinte in 1956.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, American decathlete Ashton Eaton<\/a> was named the male IAAF World Athlete of the Year. Both Eaton and Dibaba did not receive their awards at an annual gala dinner in Monaco.<\/p>\n

The IAAF had to break their tradition this year due to the doping scandal that has gripped the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the athletics family is not gathering together as usual in Monaco, we rightly celebrate the marvelous 2015 achievements of the athletes,\u201d under-pressure IAAF president Sebastian Coe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI offer congratulations to our World Athletes of the Year, world champions Ashton Eaton and Genzebe Dibaba. Your performances in 2015 are an inspiration and examples of true sporting excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has named Ethiopian middle and long distance runner Genzebe Dibaba as the female IAAF World Athlete of the Year 2015. 24-year-old Dibaba earned the award on Thursday after a stellar year on the…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,46],"tags":[4498,4967,4499,4500,4501],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9788,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786\/revisions\/9788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}