The four-time Paris Olympic champion topped the list, ahead of Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogačar, who won the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the world road race championship.
Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis, the Olympic champion from Paris and the world record holder in the sport, came in third in the poll, which surveyed journalists from news agencies across Europe.
Tennis star Iga Świątek was the highest-ranked Polish athlete, finishing in 23rd place, while soccer player Robert Lewandowski took 40th.
Now in its 67th year, the PAP poll is one of the world’s oldest of its kind, according to the Polish news agency.
This year, journalists from 21 European news agencies, including France's AFP and Germany’s DPA, selected their picks for the top 10 athletes in Europe.
Polish athletes have won the poll five times. Świątek was voted European Athlete of the Year in 2022, and Lewandowski took the title in 2020. Long-distance runner Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak was the inaugural winner in 1958, and track-and-field icon Irena Szewińska, Poland’s most decorated Olympian, won twice, in 1966 and 1974.
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Source: PAP