Fastest Ever Performers Earn 2019 Pro Performance of the Year Awards

Track and field fans voiced their choices in this week's DyeStat's Pro Performance of the Year poll, while DyeStat's editors made their own selection.

Readers’ Choice: Eliud Kipchoge

With 75.75 percent of the vote, Eliud Kipchoge won our Readers’ Choice vote, beating Dalilah Muhammad with her second-place tally of 9.05 percent.

Kipchoge, of Kenya, is the king of the marathon. In 2017 he ran an exhibition marathon in 2:00:25. He followed that in 2018 by running an official world record of 2:01:39 at the Berlin Marathon. This year, Kipchoge returned to chasing a sub-two-hour marathon.

The INEOS 1:59 Challenge was designed to learn from Nike's Breaking2 Project in 2017. Kipchoge had come so close and he definitely wanted to be the first human to run under two hours, regardless of world records.

Running on the streets of Vienna, Kipchoge got his wish. Running with a collection of more than 40 pacemakers subbing in and out, Kipchoge completed the marathon in 1:59:40.2.

It is an impressive achievement. No matter what the world record is in the future, Kipchoge will be remembered as the first man to run under two hours for the marathon, even though his run was not world record eligible.

As it stands currently, Kipchoge owns the three-fastest marathons of all-time, regardless of conditions under which they were run. Kenenisa Bekele is the second fastest man of all-time, having run two minutes slower than Kipchoge's exhibition race time.

Watch Kipchoge's run on RunnerSpace.com.

Editors’ Choice: Dalilah Muhammad

Kipchoge was a great choice for performance of the year. However, two other performances stand out as worth of additional recognition.

The first is Brigid Kosgei's marathon world record at the Chicago Marathon. The Kenyan ran 2:14:04 to take more than a minute off the women's world record and more than four minutes off her personal best.

It was a shock to many as Kosgei ran the first 5K on 2:10 pace. It was nearly impossible to watch and think she would not pay the price for such a fast early pace. Despite that, she found her rhythm and ran her way to a world record.

The second performance is Muhammad's 400-meter hurdles world record at the IAAF World Outdoor Championships. She ran 52.16, earning a narrow win over Sydney McLaughlin.

This was Muhammad's second time breaking the world record this year. Her first record came at the USATF Outdoor Championships where she won in 52.20. That took 0.14 seconds off the 2003 world record belonging to Yuliya Pechonkina of Russia.

Muhammad has timed her best performances well as she raced her best in two of the most important races of the year. After earning the world record on a wet track at the USATF Outdoor Championships, that could have been the highlight of her year. However, Muhammad kept working hard and she was not only rewarded with the world title and world record, but the editors' 2019 DyeStat Pro Performance of the Year award as well.