Reigning European U20 cross country champions Jakob Ingebrigtsen from Norway and Nadia Battocletti from Italy have been voted European Athletes of the Month for December 2019.
Voting opened across European Athletics’ Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on Wednesday and just under 28,000 votes were cast across the three platforms.
This was the fourth time Ingebrigtsen has been voted European Athlete of the Year in the space of twelve months. The Norwegian accrued 5693 votes, comfortably beating out France’s Jimmy Gressier (3659 votes) and Belgium’s Bashir Abdi (1929 votes).
Ingebrigtsen made a late decision to compete at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon where he won an unprecedented fourth successive U20 title. His winning margin of 38 seconds was also the largest in race history.
On the women’s side, Battocletti topped the voting with 3842 votes ahead of French 10km record-holder Liv Westphal (2940 votes) and European U23 cross country champion Anna Emilie Moller from Denmark (2632 votes).
Battocletti followed in Ingebrigtsen’s path by defending her title in the U20 race in Lisbon, defeating a stellar field which included European U20 5000m champion Klara Lukan from Slovenia and home favourite Mariana Machado.
The European Athlete of the Month initiative was launched in 2007 and three male and five female athletes have been nominated based purely on their performances in the previous month. No athlete who has served a doping ban of two years or longer can be nominated for the award.
Men's voting
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR) 5693 votesJimmy Gressier (FRA) 3659
Bashir Abdi (BEL) 1929
Robel Fsiha (SWE) 1872
Kaan Kigen Ozbilen (TUR) 1706
Women's voting
Nadia Battocletti (ITA) 3842 votesLiv Westphal (FRA) 2940
Anna Emilie Moller (DEN) 2632
Yasemin Can (TUR) 1880
Charlotte Purdue (GBR) 1842