USA Swimming’s Golden Goggle awards honor the country’s best swimmers across eight categories, often highlighting performances at one long course meet each year. In 2015, athletes were impressive in three separate meets around the world, and the nominees come from each of those competitions.
USA Swimming unveiled the nominees via Twitter, posting each category one at a time about 20 minutes apart. Voting for the awards will be open to the public, and those votes will help determine the winners.
With Michael Phelps posting three of the world’s fastest times at the national championships, it was difficult to ignore that meet, and Phelps received three nominations to mark his 11th time among nominees in 12 years. Plus, Kelsi Worrell and Katie Meili did remarkable things at the Pan American Games, swimming fast enough to have earned a medal at the world championships. Those two are among the nominees for Breakout Performer of the Year.
At the world championships, Katie Ledecky shocked the world with her world record-setting swims in distance freestyle, and she received five nominations, including three in the Female Race of the Year category. Ryan Lochte was the only male American to win an individual gold at the world championships, and he’s up against Phelps and Jordan Wilimovsky for Male Athlete of the Year.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles on November 22.
USA Swimming Golden Goggles Nominees
Breakout Performer of the Year
Katie Meili: Pan Am Games 100 breast gold
Jordan Wilimovsky: World champion, 10K
Kelsi Worrell: Pan Am Games 100 fly champion, first woman under 50 seconds in 100-yard fly at NCAA championships
Perseverance Award
Kevin Cordes: Silver medal in 200 breast, gold in 400 medley relay at world championships
Connor Jaeger: American record in 1500 free at world championships
Allison Schmitt: Pan Am Games 200 free champion
Coach of the Year
Bob Bowman
Bruce Gemmell
Dave Kelsheimer
David Marsh
Catherine Vogt
Relay Performance of the Year
Mixed 400 free relay, gold at world championships
Men’s 400 medley relay, gold at world championships
Women’s 800 free relay, gold at world championships
Female Race of the Year
Haley Anderson, 5K open water world title
Katie Ledecky, 200 free gold at world championships
Katie Ledecky, 800 free gold at world championships
Katie Ledecky, 1500 free gold medal at world championships
Male Race of the Year
Connor Jaeger, American record in 1500 free at world championships
Ryan Lochte, 200 IM gold at world championships
Michael Phelps, 100 fly at nationals
Michael Phelps, 200 fly at nationals
Female Athlete of the Year
Haley Anderson
Missy Franklin
Katie Ledecky
Male Athlete of the Year
Ryan Lochte
Michael Phelps
Jordan Wilimovsky
Yesss!
I’m happy to see that athletes from the 3 biggest meets are all being recognized, and it’s great that Haley and Jordan both got some nominations too. It’s good to see Open Water getting some love!
Top 4 meets…Worlds, WUGS, Pan Ams, and Nationals.
YES – Nice to see Open Water get some notice AND I’d like to bring up a couple points of information/opinion:
1) Hey Swimming World – Ryan Lochte was NOT the only male to win an individual gold at World Champs. Check your own facts listed just below Editors – JordanWilomovsky won the 10K Gold!
2) Speaking of that 10K race it was absolutely the BEST male race of the World Championships and even though Phelps’ pool swims in San Antonio will be hard to beat, the Committee definitely missed the mark by leaving that swim off the nomination list. The incredible manner that athlete just stood up and walked away from the best swimmers in the world AND became the top seeded qualifier for the Olympic 10K Marathin Swim was nothing short of phenomenal. No open water swimmer has ever performed such a dominant dusting of the fields in the Olympic era of The 10K.
3) It is a shame that Relay Performance of the Year is not titled Team Performance of the Year so that the entire USAOW World Championship Team could at least get a nomination (and a trip to LA!) because all they did was win the TEAM World Title for the first time since the 1990’s! The way they conducted themselves as a group in Kazan and their accomplishment is definitely deserving of major recognition.
4) Which finally brings me to my final point of my opinion on who to vote for as Coach of the Year – GREAT names listed all and I would not argue with any one of them bringing home that golden mantelpiece but if anyone asked me to vote… Hands down I’d vote for Cat Vogt! Congratulations to all the nominees! In every category – truly an honor in itself.