MONACO (CMC) – Jamaica’s world 200 metres champion Shericka Jackson is one of 11 nominees for the World Athletics Female Athlete of the Year award.

According to an announcement on the website of World Athletics, the sport’s world governing body, the voting process for the award opened on Wednesday, and the athletes were selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of the organisation.

“In what has been another memorable year for the sport, the nominations reflect some of the standout performances achieved at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23, one-day meeting circuits, road races, and other events around the world,” the announcement stated.

Jackson had set her sights during the international track and field season on breaking the 200m world record of 21.34 seconds set by deceased American sprint queen Florence Griffith-Joyner at the Olympic Games 35 years ago in Seoul, South Korea.

The 29-year-old Jamaican sprint darling got to within seven hundredths of a second when she retained her world title in August in the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

Jackson ended the season strongly when she completed the sprint double at the Prefontaine Classic at the season-ending World Athletics Diamond League Finals in the American city of Eugene in the state of Oregon.

She clocked a new meet record of 21.57 secs in the 200, and she beat world champion Sha’Carri Richardson of the United States to win the women’s 100m dash.

Apart from her run at the World Championships and Diamond League Finals, Jackson also ran 21.48 at the Diamond League meet in Brussels, and she now has three of the four fastest times in the women’s 200m.

Another strong contender for the Female Athlete of the Year award will be Kenyan Faith Kipyegon, who broke world records in the 1,500m and 5,000m and became the first woman to win titles in the 1,500m and 5,000m at a single World Championships.

Other nominees include Tigst Assefa, who lowered the women’s marathon world record on September 24 by two minutes, 11 seconds to 2 hours, 11 minutes, 53 seconds, and fellow Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay, who broke Kipyegon’s 5,000m world record on September 17.

Richardson, who won gold at the World Championships in the 100m and with the United States in the 4x100m relay as well as a bronze in the 200m, is also among the nominees.

The other nominees are all world champions: Femke Bol of the Netherlands (400 hurdles), Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan (javelin), Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine (high jump), Maria Perez of Spain (race walk), Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela (triple jump), and Winfred Yavi of Bahrain (3 000 steeplechase).

From here, a three-way voting process determines five finalists. 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 closes at midnight on Saturday, October 28.

World Athletics plans to announce women’s and men’s finalists on November 13 and 14.

The men’s nominees have yet to be announced.

The winners are to be announced December 11.