Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

[ZELLGADISS]

For the Academy of Sports in USA, Bolt won Sportsman of the year, the BEST in 2012.
The voting was in the channel NBC SPORTS.

It is incredible that a lot of international media give to Bolt the BEST SPORTSMAN in the world in this 2012(In Laureus he has a lot of options too), while somebody in this forum thinks that he is not the best athlete in this year.

REALLY incredible :shock:

[gh]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

international media know nothing about the realities of track & field, and produce popularity-contest voting.

[mump boy]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

international media know nothing about the realities of track & field, and produce popularity-contest voting.

Substitute International Association of Athletic Federations and you get the same thing !!

[maroon]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

i wish folk would please stop complaining about the niche status of the sport and the lack of coverage in sports illustrated, etc. even a marketing novice like me knows that bolt would be a better choice if you want to market the sport and your magazine to non-diehard fans. if you want to be purist, no worries, but please don't complain that you are a starving purist.

[ZELLGADISS]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

gh i dont think same that you.
International journalists with long experience and several experts in track and field like exist in a lot of media, i dont think that the all media votes to Bolt by POPULARITY :shock:

In my opinion it is an excuse for no to tell that Bolt was the best athlete and perhaps the best sportsman in the world in this 2012.
The popularity does not get a lot of wonderful times, 3 golds in OG by 2nd time consecutive(AMAZING, first time in the history), and to win all events in DL in 100 and 200 this year 8-)
In addition having serious injury only 1 month before OG :shock:

[Flumpy]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

Oh turn it in. You're obsessive Bolt stanning is really tedious.

It wouldn't matter what other athletes did you would still insist that Bolt was the better and drone on about his accomplishments when other disagree.

T&FN didn't vote him AOY in 2012 because he wasn't the AOY. Get over it.

[gh]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

... even a marketing novice like me knows that bolt would be a better choice if you want to market the sport and your magazine to non-diehard fans. ...

Let me see if I've got this right: rather than choosing the proper AOY, we should go with the one that sells the most magazines? That's a new take on journalistic integrity.

[Blues]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

When you look at the how the contest works, I don't think it's that surprising that Bolt and Serena Williams won... The voting seems to have been done by international fans.

"The two Olympic standouts dominated the voting in the 28th consecutive year that the Academy has overseen the Athlete of the Year award, which was done in conjunction with NBC Sports. Hundreds of thousands of sports fans worldwide selected the most outstanding male and female athletes in online balloting on the Academy’s website at http://www.ussa.edu. The ballot included 12 males and 12 females and voting lasted from Dec. 1 to Dec. 21.

The Athlete of the Year ballot is the culmination of the Academy’s yearlong Athlete of the Month program, which recognizes the accomplishments of men and women in sports from around the globe. Each month, the public is invited to participate in the worldwide Athlete of the Month program by nominating athletes and then voting online during the first two weeks of every month. The votes, along with an Academy selection committee, choose the male and female winners monthly who then become eligible for the prestigious Athlete of the Year honor. The monthly winners are announced on the Academy’s website and in the online edition of The Sport Update....

In 2011, the Male Athlete of the Year was Serbia’s No. 1-ranked men’s tennis player Novak Djokovic and the Female Athlete of the Year was Taiwan’s No. 1-ranked women’s golfer Yani Tseng. They both dominated the voting that drew up to 50,000 votes a day from across the world."




Here are the 12 male and female athletes the international public fans could vote for in 2012:

In alphabetical order, the 12 men competing for the Academy’s prestigious Athlete of the Year honor are: 1) Drew Brees, Football, United States; 2) Usain Bolt, Track and Field, Jamaica 3) Miguel Cabrera, Baseball, Venezuela; 4) J.R. Celski, Speedskating, United States; 5) Novak Djokovic, Tennis, Serbia; 6) Ashton Eaton, Track and Field, United States; 7) LeBron James, Basketball, United States; 8) Rory McIlroy, Golf, Ireland; 9) Lionel Messi, Soccer, Argentina; 10) Andy Murray, Tennis, Scotland; 11) Michael Phelps, Swimming, United States; and 12) Bradley Wiggins, Cycling, Great Britain.



In alphabetical order, the 12 women competing for the Academy’s prestigious Athlete of the Year honor are: 1) Victoria Azarenka, Tennis, Belarus; 2) Tamika Catchings, Basketball, United States; 3) Gabby Douglas, Gymnastics, United States; 4) Jessica Ennis, Track and Field, Great Britain; 5) Allyson Felix, Track and Field, United States; 6) Missy Franklin, Swimming, United States; 7) Carmelita Jeter, Track and Field, United States; 8) Carolina Kostner, Figure Skating, Italy; 9) Jessica Korda, Golf, United States; 10) Yani Tseng, Golf, Taiwan; 11) Lindsey Vonn, Skiing, United States; and 12) Serena Williams, Tennis, United States.

[gh]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

All those who think that Carmelita Jeter should have been on the nominees list ahead of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who beat her in both sprints in London, please raise your hands.

[maroon]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

... even a marketing novice like me knows that bolt would be a better choice if you want to market the sport and your magazine to non-diehard fans. ...

Let me see if I've got this right: rather than choosing the proper AOY, we should go with the one that sells the most magazines? That's a new take on journalistic integrity.

thats not what i said and you know it, or do you? i said you are free to choose the "proper aoy" whatever that means, but please do not complain about the sport dying or better selling magazines ignoring the sport.

i will write in a separate post (assuming i don't get banned for this post) about what i think "aoy" should mean.

[maroon]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

i think the whole concept of "aoy" is really antiquated and not suited for a sport that is on the brink of obscurity. to be more precise, i think the criteria for "athlete of the year" should take into account the intangibles such as "what people are talking about" effect in addition to the actual performances. performance of the year is fine as is and perhaps that should remain as the track and field purist award while the athlete of the year would be a combination of performance at OG or WC, overall season and impact on the sport/buzz.

obviously, someone like lolo jones would not win with her 2012 season because she was mostly buzz, but she brought a lot of publicity to her event and her bitter competitors should have been happy that they got they publicity they did because of her marketing efforts.

for someone like bolt, you have to take into account the history making double triple. the olympics was all about him. how can the magazine that is the primary source of the history of the sport ignore that? and i am not a big allyson felix fan, but why is she not athlete of the year? i know all the arguments about relays and individual performance, etc., but she was the biggest female star coming out of the games. in short, the iaaf got it right. t&fnews got it wrong, imo.

[Blues]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

All those who think that Carmelita Jeter should have been on the nominees list ahead of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who beat her in both sprints in London, please raise your hands.

Agreed, and obviously Shelly-Ann isn't the only athlete to get jobbed... Because of the way this contest works based on public fan voting, only one male and one female every month can be selected as athlete of the month (and thus become eligible for Athlete of the Year voting), and for August the fans voted in Olympians Usain Bolt and America swimmer Missy Franklin.... Carmelita Jeter got in because she was the fans' pick for the month of May, when she ran 10.81 in Jamaica. Because of the way this contest is structured, an athlete with a red herring one-off performance during one month of the year can qualify for AOY, while an athlete who might finish a close second in the voting in all 12 months of the year won't be eligible.

Interestingly, for the Olympic month of August when American swimmer Missy Franklin was voted as athlete of the month, American gymnast Gabby Douglas was the second place vote-getter, and American sprinter Allyson Felix was third. I don't know how far back SAFP or any other Olympic athletes finished... For the men's voting for the Olympic month of August, the voting went Bolt, then American swimmer Michael Phelps, and then American decathlete Ashton Eaton in third.

[Flumpy]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

in short, the iaaf got it right. t&fnews got it wrong, imo.

They only got it wrong if they followed your absurd criteria, which luckily they didn't.

It's like giving a Grammy to 'Gangnam Style' after all it was the most talked about song of the year :roll:

[ZELLGADISS]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

I only hear excuses here.

It is really incredible that in a lot of awards in different countries, about Sportsman of the year is winning almost always Bolt in 2012 while here someone telling that he is not the best in his sport this year.

But OF COURSE only some people that opine here in this forum is "intelligent" and the rest of the world is "stupid" and they dont know about track and field or sports in general :lol:

For me it is amazing really

[ExCoastRanger]

Re: Usain Bolt AGAIN Sportsman of the year in USA

the olympics was all about him....

Not the Olympics I saw.
Also, AOY should (and does for T&FN) factor in more than the Olympics.