Alkass Digital
Monaco: Qatar's high jump champion Mutaz Barshim shared the Inspiration Award with fellow Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy at the World Athletics Awards 2021 ceremony held Wednesday.
Barshim and Tamberi shared the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics when, after both finished on 2.37 metres, the Qatari athlete asked officials: “Can we have two golds?” These two became one of the biggest talking points of the Olympic Games, mainly for the act of respect and sportsmanship between two friends.
Barshim said: “I hope to inspire more people to love our sport and maybe share a gold one day!”
Tamberi added: “It is just crazy if I think about this story. Thank you very much for this trophy."
"I now call Mutaz like five times a week because I need to speak with him. I feel that now we are not just friends, we are really like blood brothers.”
Jamaican Elaine Thompson-Herah and Norway’s Karsten Warholm were crowned World Athletes of the Year after both produced astonishing, ground-breaking performances at the Olympic Games and beyond.
Thompson-Herah became the first woman to win back to back Olympic sprint doubles when she retained her 100m and 200m titles in Tokyo and capped a memorable Games with gold in the 4x100m relay. Her 100m time of 10.61 seconds and her 200m time of 21.53 were both the second-fastest in history.
Warholm produced one of the landmark achievements in athletics history during Tokyo 2020 as he took almost a second off the world 400, hurdles record of 46.70sec he had set just over a month earlier, clocking 45.94 in a race where the top three all finished inside the pre-2021 world record.