INDIANAPOLIS -- Double world record setter and double World Championships gold medalist Dalilah Muhammad has been named the 2019 USATF Jackie Joyner-Kersee Award winner, while World and Diamond League champion and American record setter Donavan Brazier has won the 2019 USATF Jesse Owens Award, USATF announced Monday. The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Award honors the top female USATF athlete of the year while the Owens Award honors the top male athlete. Winners are determined by a vote of the U.S. track and field media and an online fan vote. Muhammad and Brazier will be honored at the 2019 USATF Night of Legends Gala on Saturday, December 7 in Reno, Nevada as part of the USATF Annual Meeting. Tickets will be available for purchase onsite. Muhammad (Northridge, California) broke a 16-year-old world record enroute to winning the 400m hurdles title at the Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships, then broke her own world record in winning gold at the World Championships. Brazier (Cadillac, Michigan) smashed the 600m world indoor best at the Toyota USATF Indoor Championships before claiming the U.S. 800m outdoor title and then the American record and gold medal in Doha. “In a thrilling season, Dalilah and Donavan are being honored as the best of the best,” USATF CEO Max Siegel said. “On behalf of USATF, we congratulate them on historic, record-breaking seasons and thank them for inspiring their teammates, the country and the next generation of athletes.” 2019 Jackie Joyner-Kersee Athlete of the Year: Dalilah Muhammad Smashing records and taking golds. Under pressure and in the spotlight Muhammad broke the world record. Twice. Running in lane four on Drake’s rain-soaked oval at the Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships, Muhammad, the reigning Olympic champion and 2017 World Championships silver medalist, clocked 52.20 breaking the previous world record of 52.34, set on August 8, 2003, by Russia’s Yuliya Pechonkina. Muhammad had defending champion Shamier Little and world-leading Sydney McLaughlin to her outside. She covered the final stretch with near perfection and won by .68 over McLaughlin. It was the first women’s 400H world record ever set on U.S. soil, and the first world record at Drake Stadium since Ralph Mann’s 48.8 for the 440y hurdles on June 20, 1970. A little over two months later, Muhammad was in lane six for the 400m hurdles World Championship at Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar. With Team USATF teammate Sydney McLaughlin to her inside, the dynamic duo of American hurdlers threw down the greatest race in their event’s history, culminating in a world record and bringing back memories of the 1995 Worlds in Gothenburg when Kim Batten and Tonja Buford-Bailey swept in similar fashion. Muhammad again broke the world record in the women’s 400m hurdles, this time it was her own world record, stopping the clock at 52.16. Muhammad wasn’t done as she returned to the track two days later running the third leg on Team USATF’s star studded 4x400m relay squad. Receiving the baton with a lead from McLaughlin, she extended the margin to more than 20m before passing off to Wadeline Jonathas on the way to claiming the gold medal with the fastest time in the world this year, 3:18.92, a time that has only ever been bettered by four other nations. 2019 Jesse Owens Athlete of the Year: Donavan Brazier A season for the record books. Brazier took down some of the longest standing American records in a season of U.S. firsts. The record-smashing season started early for Donavan Brazier. He kicked off the year breaking Johnny Gray’s 27-year-old American indoor record in the men’s 800m with his 1:44.41 at the Millrose Games. He clocked a scorching 24.60 first lap, leading through 400m but Kenya’s Michael Saruni was on his hip and broke past Brazier on the final curve. He built on that performance with a stunning world best in the Chocolate Milk Men’s 600m, clipping more than a second off the old best with a 1:13.77 that gave him a 1.43 second margin of victory and his second straight U.S. at the Toyota USATF Indoor Championships. The indoor season proved to be Brazier’s warning to the world. Next he took aim at the Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships, where he rolled to an eye-opening 50.62 on the final 400m after an opening circuit of 55.00 to capture his second outdoor USATF title in 1:45.62. Brazier then turned to the IAAF Diamond League final in Zurich where he became the first American man to win a Diamond League title at 800m, narrowly missing the American record with a stunning 1:42.70 come-from-behind victory over world-leading Nijel Amos of Botswana. Brazier settled in at the back of a very fast-moving pack through the first lap, passing 400m in 50.8, two seconds behind the leader. He made a strong move on the final curve and traversed the final 100m in 12.7 to pass Amos midway down the stretch. His time was only .1 seconds short of the 1:42.60 American record set in 1985 by Johnny Gray and was the third-fastest time ever by a U.S. runner. Brazier spent the past two years just missing a number of Johnny Gray’s American records but he took down the big one on the largest stage. He smashed Gray’s American record that had stood for 35 years, to become the first U.S. man to win gold at the World Championships, destroying a quality field with his meet record 1:42.34. Brazier followed the pacing of Puerto Rico’s Wesley Vazquez through 400m in 49.21 and with 250m to go he surged to the lead. Passing 600m in 1:15.81, Brazier never looked back en route to the first American global gold in the two-lapper since Dave Wottle’s storied victory at the ‘72 Olympics. Join the conversation with USATF on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook using the hashtag #USATF.