Readers of the world renowned athletics magazine, Athletics Weekly, have selected Usain Bolt as the greatest athlete of the past 75 years. They placed Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce third among the women.

The magazine that was first published in 1945, is celebrating its Diamond anniversary and for its December issue, to mark the occasion it asked its more than 100,000 readers to vote for the top male and female track and field athletes between then and present day.

A whopping 55.3 per cent of the votes went to Usain Bolt as the top male athlete. Bolt won eight Olympic gold medals between 2008 and 2012 and became the first athlete to win gold medals in the 100m and 200m for three consecutive Olympic Games.

Bolt also won 11 World Championship gold medals.

The Jamaican also holds the world records in the 100m and 200m that were set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany.

Coming in second with 17.1 per cent of the votes was the outstanding Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie while Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zatopek was third with 14.5 per cent of the votes.

Fraser-Pryce has won two Olympic 100m gold medals, four 100m world titles and a 200m title but according to the voters that was not good enough to finish ahead of Ethiopia’s long-distance queen Tirunesh Dibaba, who garnered 31.1 per cent of the votes for greatest female track athlete.

Dibaba won world titles in the 5000m and 10,000m double in 2007 as well as winning the 10,000m title in both 2007 and 2013 and the 2017 10,000m silver.

Between 2005 and 2012, she won 12 successive races over 25 laps.

Dutch super athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen picked up 25.7 per cent of the vote while the Pocket Rocket won the hearts of 18.9 per cent of the voters.