Overcoming adversity should have little if anything to do with the athlete of the year pick. Once again we see the recognition of excellence twisted by considerations that are irrelevent to excellence. I say this as a rabid fan of Lance Armstrong and of grand tour bicycle racing. I don't agree with gh about Bonds, but I'm not so sure that Armstrong should be the automatic selection. After winning the TDF twice, he needed to do a little something more to get the award - once you've got the first two under your belt it becomes easier, as Lance himself has said.
But of course, "best of the year" picks always have some sort of bias or other. Just look at the TFN and IAAF AOY picks. If a pure marathoner can't win AOY with the two races that KK had in 2002, especially in a non-championship year, then it probably will never happen unless some stud comes along and pops four 2:05 marathons in a year. To me that would be roughly equivalent to a 1500m guy breaking 3:27.5 40 times in a year, which will probably never happen either. There have been some years that KK's 2002 performances would have legitimately lost out to others. But 2002 was not one of them. - Ed Parrot ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin J. Dixon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "track list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 27, 2002 5:19 PM Subject: Re: t-and-f: The REAL athlete of the year > Just because there is all kinds of nonsense below the top doesn't mean that > they can't get lucky and get the number one right. The pick of almost every > list that I have seen. Only my personal opinion, but after coming back from > what he came back from and doing what he did, these awards are beneath the guy > anyway. I'm sure he couldn't care less that gh thinks Bonds was a better > athlete this year. Proximity to death will do that to you. > Regards, > Martin > > ghill wrote: > > > You people catch the AP's AOY voting? I'm not trying to start an Armstrong > > vs. Bonds discussion (even though they did get it wrong), but how about Tim > > Montgomery as the only track guy? Tied with John Stockton and Adam > > Vinatieri. Good to see that he beat Sam Hornish, though. > > > > gh > > > > Player Pts > > Lance Armstrong (45) 292 > > Barry Bonds (31) 233 > > Tiger Woods (7) 110 > > Tom Brady (2) 38 > > Shaquille O'Neal (1) 33 > > Cael Sanderson (3) 29 > > Randy Johnson (3) 28 > > Tony Stewart (2) 22 > > Emmitt Smith (1) 21 > > Alex Rodriguez (2) 17 > > Saku Koivu (2) 14 > > Apolo Ohno (1) 14 > > Priest Holmes (2) 12 > > Juan Dixon (1) 11 > > Ronaldo 9 > > Jimmy Shea (1) 9 > > Alexei Yagudin (1) 9 > > Kobe Bryant 7 > > Lennox Lewis (1) 7 > > Brad Banks (1) 6 > > Brett Favre 6 > > Tim Montgomery 5 > > John Stockton (1) 5 > > Adam Vinatieri (1) 5 > > Roy Williams (1) 5 > > Ken Dorsey 3 > > Drew Gooden 3 > > Lleyton Hewitt 3 > > Sam Hornish 3 > > Bode Miller 3 > > Derek Parra 3 > > Brian Shimer 3 > > Pete Sampras 2 > > Kurt Warner 2 > > Ole Einar Bjorndalen 1 > > Troy Glaus 1 > > Torii Hunter 1 > > Oliver Kahn 1 > > Michael Schumacher 1 > > Jason Williams 1 > > > > > >
