Timemagazine named US president-elect Barack Obama its Person of the Year in 2008 after he became the first African-American to win the White House.
The other finalists were US treasury secretary Henry Paulson, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Chinese director Zhang Yimou,
Timesaid today.
"In one of the craziest elections in American history, he overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions and the racial divide to become the 44th president of the United States," the magazine said of the president-elect.