Alemayehu Bezabeh has been named men's European Athlete of the Month for December.

European Athletics is pleased to announce that Alemayehu Bezabeh of Spain and Great Britain's Hayley Yelling have been selected as the European Athletes of the Month for December.

Bezabeh became the first man from his country to win a senior title at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in 16 years of the event. For much of the race in Dublin, he had to fight with Great Britain's Mo Farah but the Spaniard pulled away from the 2006 champion and last year's runner-up around 2 kilometres from the end of the 9997m race.

The 23-year-old also guided Spain to win the men's senior team title for the third year in succession.

Yelling, a 35-year-old schoolteacher, scripted a remarkable comeback to competitive sport after a year-long hiatus to win the women's senior title in Dublin.

Yelling had decided to hang up her spikes in the wake of a disappointing 19th place at the 2008 SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Brussels.

What is even more noteworthy is that she only started training seriously a month before the start of the event in Dublin. She was also instrumental in guiding Great Britain to the team silver medal behind Portugal.

Junior champion Jeroen D'Hoedt of Belgium and U23 champion Noureddine Smail of France followed Bezabeh in the men's poll while the women's U23 champion Sultan Haydar of Turkey and senior bronze medallist Adrienne Herzog of the Netherlands were voted likewise in the women's polls.

The European Athlete of the Month initiative was launched in January 2007 and is designed to recognise outstanding performers at all levels of the sport in Europe.

European Athletics names a male and female winner each month and features the athlete on the European Athletics website. Selections are based on votes by the public, the media and a panel of European Athletics experts, with each counting for 33.3 percent of the final vote.

No athlete who has previously served a two-year doping ban can be nominated for or win the European Athlete of the Month.

 

Previous Winners:

Month	Male	Country	Female	Country
November	Guenther Weidlinger	AUT	Ana Dulce Felix	POR
October	Mo Farah	GBR	Inês Monteiro	POR
September	Primož Kozmus	SLO	Blanka Vlašić	CRO
July	Tomasz Majewski	POL	Marta Domínguez	ESP
June	Renaud Lavillenie	FRA	Ariane Friedrich	GER
May	Nelson Évora	POR	Jessica Ennis	GBR
April	Gerd Kanter	EST	Irina Mikitenko	GER
March	Sebastian Bayer	GER	Ariane Friedrich	GER
February	Yelena Isinbayeva	RUS	Ivan Ukhov	RUS
January	Mo Farah	GBR	Blanka Vlasic	CRO