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KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- TIME Magazine, Tuesday, named ace Jamaican sprinter and world record holder for the 100 and 200 metres, Usain Bolt, among the four runners-up for its prestigious "Person of the Year" 2009.
The award went to Ben Bernanke, the 56-year-old chairman of the United States' central bank, the Federal Reserves, who is credited with preventing the economic catastrophe threatened by the weakened economy in 2009.
There were four runners-up: Jamaica's Usain Bolt; the Chinese Worker, credited for making that country the world's fastest growing major economy; Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi; and the Commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.
Those in the third level, "People Who Mattered Most", included: US President Barack Obama, who won last year; President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai; TV latenight hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman; US presidential aspirant Sarah Palin; Ponzi scheme king, the disgraced Bernard "Bernie" Madoff; new US Supreme Court judge, Sonia Sotomayor; baseballer Alex Rodriquez; golfer Tiger Woods; and "The Twitter Guys".
"The beauty of springing lies in its simplicity. Running is the rawest form of athleticism; no piece of equipment can control your fate; no teammates can lift you up or slow you down. It's you and your motor to the finish. And when Bolt hit speeds approaching 30 mph (48 km/h) on the track, we witness man morph into machine," the TIME article said about the Jamaican sprint star.
TIME has been choosing a Man of the Year since 1927, starting with Charles Lindberg. Winners have included Haile Selassie, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
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