The Official SwimSwam Ballot For the 2015 Golden Goggle Awards

Monday, USA Swimming announced the list of nominees for the 2015 Golden Goggles Awards, and as we do every year, we here at SwimSwam have gone through the list of nominees and made our selections.

Mind you, in most cases, these are not our predictions of who will win – it’s often obvious to see who is going to be chosen, but we sometimes disagree with that selection. In some cases, that’s because of varying definitions of “perseverance,” and in others it’s simply a difference of opinion. We’re focusing on who we think should win based on our definition of the award.

Of course, anybody who is even nominated for a Golden Goggles award had a fantastic season, but only one person can win an award in each category, and that’s what makes them such an honor.

You can vote for the 2015 Golden Goggle Awards here.

HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE ONLINE VOTING?

Nominees:

• USA Swimming Foundation Website (39%)
• USA Swimming Website (7%)
• Twitter (10%)
• Facebook (30%)
• Instagram (3%)
• Other (11%)

Other: This cool swimming news website we stumbled upon.

BREAKOUT PERFORMER OF THE YEAR

Nominees:

• Katie Meili (24%)
• Jordan Wilimovsky (29%)
• Kelsi Worrell (47%)

Three really great choices here. Worrell and Meili were the breakout stars of the Pan American Games, putting up the nation’s best times of the year in the 100 fly and 100 breast, respectively. Worrell adds her explosion in the NCAA season that included the first sub-50-second 100 fly in history, and Meili boasts a strong Arena Pro Swim Series to her resume.

But it’s hard to argue with a World Championships gold medal, especially in the Olympic-distance 10K open water swim. And Wilimovsky made absurd improvements over the course of the year – he was just 16th at Pan Pacs last summer, a meet that only featured a small segment of the world’s swimming nations, and in the span of one year moved to the very top of the entire world. In fact, 2015 was not only Wilimovsky’s first world title, it was also his first-ever national title.

PERSEVERANCE AWARD

• Kevin Cordes (18%)
• Connor Jaeger (24%)
• Allison Schmitt (58%)

Some interesting differences in scale on this one. In a vacuum, Jaeger’s 2015 World Championships showed great perseverence, overcoming back-to-back 4th-place finishes to finally break through with a medal in the 1500 free. Taking a wider view, Cordes has taken his lumps internationally over the past two summers, but really came through in 2015 when Team USA needed him.

But Schmitt’s story is the grandest of all in terms of scale, and that’s why we’re inclined to vote her way. Her redemption arc has been in the making since the 2012 Olympic Games, her last international competition prior to the summer’s Pan American Games. More importantly, Schmitt has opened up about her struggles with depression since those 2012 Olympics. Count us fully on board with a swimmer using her position in the sport to do something bigger than just winning medals (though certainly a few more of them appear in the works, too): namely, coming forward to help remove the stigma associated with mental health in athletics. That’s something that’s been near and dear to SwimSwam’s collective heart throughout our ongoing series on mental health in athletics.

COACH OF THE YEAR

• Bob Bowman (26%)
• Bruce Gemmell (28%)
• Dave Kelsheimer (12%)
• David Marsh (23%)
• Cathering Vogt (11%)

For the second year in a row, this one is an extremely tough choice. Bowman gets points for preparing his swimmers to dominate at a wide range of major meets: Schmitt at Pan Ams, Michael Phelps at U.S. Nationals and Chase Kalisz at Worlds.

But with Worlds holding special significance as USA Swimming’s Operation Gold meet for the year, Marsh should be in the conversation based on his work with Ryan Lochte and Micah Lawrence, plus Meili at Pan Ams.

In the end, though, as long as Katie Ledecky continues to be the best swimmer on the planet by ridiculous margins, it’s hard to vote against Gemmell, who has won this award the past two years.

RELAY PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

• Women’s 4×200 free relay – World Championships (51%)
• Men’s 4×100 medley relay – World Championships (22%)
• Mixed 4×100 free relay – World Championships (28%)

We’ll go against the grain a little with this one and pick the men’s medley relay. The talk all year long was about the British, and how they were in line to end the American dominance of the medley relay that has stretched for years. Things looked dire when the top American butterflyer (Phelps) wasn’t even in Kazan to swim the relay. Backstroker Ryan Murphy was extremely green internationally, as was flyer Tom Shields, and Kevin Cordes‘ World Champs history made him a bit of a wild card, too. But the relay came down with gold with all four legs (including freestyler Nathan Adrian) performing very well relative to their individual swims.

There’s really no bad choice here, though. Come-from-behind victories are always sweet, and both of the other nominees feature anchor-leg rundowns. Ledecky’s final leg of the 800 free relay was classic Ledecky, and as with the previous category, it’s so hard to vote against Ledecky anytime she’s on the ballot.

FEMALE RACE OF THE YEAR

• Haley Anderson – 5K Open Water, World Championships (11%)
• Katie Ledecky – 200 free, World Championships (18%)
• Katie Ledecky – 800 free, World Championships (29%)
• Katie Ledecky – 1500 free, World Championships (42%)

With all due respect to Anderson’s excellent 5K, this race is coming down to the three-headed Ledecky monster. Arguments could be made for all three races. The 200 has the underdog factor and the excitement of Ledecky’s nearly-unprecedented range at the world level. Watching Ledecky break the world record without even trying in prelims of the 1500 was more evidence that she’s not human. (She would break it again in finals, this time, you know, actually trying to get a world record).

We’ll take her 800 free for the crazy heights to which she’s taken the world record. No one in history has been within 6 seconds of Ledecky in that Olympic event. In the post-bodysuit era, no one has been within 8. That kind of dominance over the world and all of human history is on another level entirely.

MALE RACE OF THE YEAR

• Connor Jaeger – 1500 free, World Championships (12%)
• Ryan Lochte – 200 IM, World Championships (20%)
• Michael Phelps – 100 fly, National Championships (20%)
• Michael Phelps, 200 fly, National Championships (27%)
• Jordan Wilimovsky – 10K Open Water, World Championships (21%)

It’s an interesting set-up in this category. In terms of what helped Team USA the most, the rise of Jaeger and Wilimovsky in the distance races was huge. Lochte gets points for his 4-peat in the 200 IM (and maybe some bonus points for guts in sticking with his on-the-back underwater strategy in spite of DQ threats).

Despite not coming at Worlds, Phelps two fly swims were awfully impressive, though. What swimming sometimes lacks in trash talk and major rivalries, Phelps provided with his statement swims aimed directly at Chad le Clos halfway across the world. Though Phelps was clearly not trying to talk any trash in his post-race interviews, even he couldn’t help but subtly imply his races were meant to be a clear statement to his 2016 competition that the Phelps of old isn’t dead and gone.

We’ll take Phelps’ 200 fly because it was the first shot fired toward Kazan, and because it’s an event many people counted Phelps out of at age 30.

FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

• Haley Anderson (5%)
• Missy Franklin (21%)
• Katie Ledecky (74%)

She’s Katie Ledecky. Give her the Goggles.

MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

• Ryan Lochte (28%)
• Michael Phelps (46%)
• Jordan Wilimovsky (26%)

As much as we’d love to vote for the feel-good story on Wilimovsky, it’s hard to argue that he had a bigger impact on the World Championships than Lochte, who won four medals, three of them gold, and took home his fourth-straight World title in the 200 IM. Phelps has all the flash after his world-leading times at U.S. Nationals, but you can’t discount Lochte’s veteran leadership at Worlds, and his contributions to the Team USA relays.