As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020

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As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020

For the past 33 years, Globetrotting has selected annual medal winners in international sports, given to those athletes for whom an Olympic gold is the ultimate goal.

The pandemic that has shattered lives around the world made it impractical and unsafe to have most international sports competitions for the last nine months – and even those that have taken place in the current winter season have been changed by having athletes opt out or, in the case of figure skating, becoming essentially domestic events.

Given that, trying to give awards in the format I used in the past seems like a fool’s errand.

Yet it would not be good to let the year pass without some shout-outs to athletes in Olympic sports, both active and retired, whose achievements or courage (or both) were noteworthy.

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With gold haul from world meets, Biles and Dressel get more as best of international sports in 2019

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With gold haul from world meets, Biles and Dressel get more as best of international sports in 2019

In Globetrotting’s 33rd annual international sports awards to athletes for whom an Olympic gold medal is the ultimate prize, Simone Biles and Caeleb Dressel are the big winners.

That caveat about the highest goal and the development of the World Cup into the most important event in women’s soccer means Team USA’s brilliant championship performance in France, with Megan Rapinoe the high scorer (Golden Boot) and best player (Golden Ball), is outside the parameters applied since I began these awards in the pages of the Chicago Tribune.

But it goes without saying that the soccer team deserves a loud shout-out.

And now the medalists:

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"Not Superwoman But Pretty Super:" Ledecky Gets Silver Surprise In 400 Free Relay

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RIO DE JANEIRO - Four years ago this week, Great Britain’s Rebecca Adlington had a first-hand view of the moment that surprisingly was the start of the Katie Ledecky era in women’s swimming.
 
Saturday afternoon, on the opening day of swimming at the 2016 Olympics, Adlington had a different vantage point on another Ledecky swim that seemed equally surprising.
 
A near-repeat performance Saturday night brought Ledecky a silver medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle, an event in which there had been no guarantee she would compete.
 
“She’s just amazing,” Adlington said as she stood on a bus for the brief ride between the pool and the Main Press Center.

FOR MY WHOLE STORY ON TEAMUSA.COM, CLICK HERE

For Phelps & Lochte, another matchless episode of long-running hit

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    Gonna take a sentimental journey
 
    Gonna set my heart at ease
 
    Gonna make a sentimental journey
 
    To renew old memories
 
           -- From the classic 1945 No. 1 hit song, “Sentimental Journey”

OMAHA, Neb. – They should have cleared everyone else out of the pool, leaving Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in a match race, because that is what Friday night’s final of the 200-meter individual medley at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Swimming turned out to be.

Again.

No one expected anything else from the two men who have battled each other for global supremacy in the event over 13 years, creating the greatest rivalry in the history of their sport.

And the two 31-year-olds now have a chance to do it one more time at the 2016 Olympics next month in Rio.

“It isn’t over,” Lochte said. “We’ve still got another month to put everything together and really give the world a show.”

There never has been a longer-running hit in the sport.

FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE

Phelps, Lochte Going At Each Other Again In Their Sport's Greatest Rivalry

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OMAHA, Neb. -- One more time, for old times’ sake.

One more chapter, possibly the last, in a riveting story.

One more chance for Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte to have at each other using all four of swimming’s strokes in what Lochte justifiably called, “One of the greatest rivalries in sports.”

Friday night, these 31-year-olds will meet in the final of the 200-meter IM at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Swimming for the fourth straight time. Phelps has won the first three, with Lochte second each time by a progressively smaller margin, just .09 seconds in 2012.

FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE