Adams is the first New Zealander to win the IAAF award, presented annually at the IAAF World Athletics Gala.
The double Olympic gold medallist shot putter beat off two other finalists, Ethiopian middle distance runner Genzebe Dibaba and Dutch sprinter Dafne Schippers, to win the coveted title after being a finalist for the last three years. She is the first thrower to win the award in ten years.
"I'm so proud and humbled by this and it makes such a special ending to a challenging but very successful year for me," said Adams after recieving the award.
"We have such a great sport and we should all be very proud of what our sport brings. Also, thanks to all the support back in my home country New Zealand. It's nice to have this award for my country as well,"she added.
Adams put a lot of her success down to her Swiss coach Jean-Pierre Egger, her Auckland-based physio Lou Johnson, and the support team around her.
The award comes at the end of another triumphant but tough year for the New Zealand shot put maestro.
Recent double surgery to correct shoulder and elbow injuries followed a season where she won the World Indoor championships title in March for the third time, gained her third consecutive Commonwealth Games gold, and her fourth IAAF Diamond League crown.
Adams swept all before her in 2014, remaining unbeaten and extending her winning streak to 56 competitions since August 2010.
In March she threw the best indoor performance in the world, winning the World Indoor Championships with a throw of 20.67m, and in her final competition of the year, the IAAF Diamond League final in September, set the world outdoor best for the year of 20.59m.
The next competition for the four-times world champion has not yet been confirmed, but Adams will not be rushing back into competition.
She wants to wait until her surgeries have been completely rehabilitated to allow her to train and compete at the level required to chase an unprecedented fifth world championship title in Beijing next August, and a third Olympic gold in Rio 2016.
The men's award went to French pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie, who broke Sergei Bubka's long-standing world record during the year and retained his Diamond League crown. The other two finalists were high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim from Qatar and Kenyan marathon record holder Dennis Kimetto.
Speaking earlier at the event, Adams called for life bans for athletes who test positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
"Once a cheater always a cheater - you should be banned for life," the BBC reported Adams as saying.
"Kick them all out, none of this back after two years stuff."
Referring to her belated gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics, which was awarded only after Belarussian Nadzeya Ostapchuk was stripped of the title for taking steroids, Adams said: "It totally sucked, but I have moved on.
"I am probably one of the lucky ones in that they caught her several days later and not two years or eight years later like a lot of other cases."
- NZ Herald
