How to vote for Kipchoge, Kipyegon in '2021 BBC African Sports Personality'

Two Kenyan athletes - Olympic Marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge and Olympic 1,500m champion Faith Kipyegon - are among the six athletes shortlisted for BBC African Sports Personality of the Year 2021 award.

Kipchoge and Kipyegon will battle it out with six other athletes, including Chelsea shot-stopper Edouard Mendy, for the prestigious individual accolade.

The six contenders for the accolade were chosen by a panel of journalists from Africa and the United Kingdom.

The panel selected a shortlist based on the best African sporting achievements on the international stage in 2021 (between January and September).

The impact of the person's achievement beyond their particular sport was also taken into account.

Other nominees are; South African duo of Long jumper and 200m runner Ntando Mahlangu and Swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker, and Olympic 200m silver medalist Christine Mboma of Namibia.

Voting closes at 23:59 GMT on Sunday, 19 December and the winner of the award will be announced on Friday, 7 January 2022 on Focus On Africa television and radio and on the BBC Sport website.

Please click here to vote.

Eliud Kipchoge, 37

Arguably the best marathon runner of all time and this year, Eliud Kipchoge cemented his status over 26.2 miles after winning his second successive Olympic gold in the event.

Just the third person to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title, the Kenyan was later named the International Olympic Committee's best male athlete of the Games.

Triumph in Tokyo means he has won 13 of the 15 major marathons he has run since stepping up to the distance in 2013, with Kipchoge adding to a resume which includes the official world record of 2:01:39 he set in Berlin in 2018.

At 36, he was the oldest man to win the Olympic marathon since Portugal's Carlos Lopes (then 37) in 1984 and recorded the greatest winning margin since 1972.

Faith Kipyegon, 27

Faith Kipyegon set an Olympic record in Tokyo as she defended the 1500m title she first won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. The Kenyan dedicated the win to her three-year-old daughter, whom she credits with giving her extra motivation after taking a 21-month break from the sport.

The dedication was all the more significant since Kipyegon is only the third athlete to retain an Olympic title after giving birth between Games (along with Australia's Shirley Strickland, in 1956, and Cameroon's Francoise Mbango, in 2008).

Prior to her stellar display in Japan, she had set a world-leading time of 3:51.07 - the fourth fastest time in history - in Monaco in July at the Diamond League, an event in which she was crowned the year's champion in September.

After her Olympic record, she is now targeting the world record.