Voting for Australia’s Sports Performer of the Year award is currently open and all the finalists announced for 2010. The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in conjunction with Colonial First State are the presenters of these annual awards in their fourth year.
There are undoubtedly some amazing Australian athletes in the final list. As visitors to this site and listeners to the show will know we do not talk AFL. Not because we do not like the sport, but because we feel it unreasonably dominates all facets of the sports media.
Having looked at the nominees for the various categories, Sports Performer of the year, Sports team of the year, Coach Performance of the year, Young performer of the year, and Performer of the year with a disability, can we seriously compare the achievements of international athletes, teams and coaches with those of a sport played solely in Australia?
While we are at it, why are the athletes with a disability not being compared with their able bodied counterparts? If you ask them, they would be happy for their achievements to be measured against all other sportspeople.
It does however seem flawed that the likes of Lauren Mitchell, Chris McCormack, and Mark Webber to name a few who have won international competition should be compared with a domestic AFL player Dane Swan!
The same applies to the team award; The Matildas won the Asia Cup beating the best women’s footballers in Asia. The Kookaburras won the Commonwealth Games gold medal, The Champions Trophy and the World Cup, unbelievable achievements, yet they are being compared with the likes of Collingwood and St George Illawarra who won domestic titles.
Hopefully sense will prevail and the right people win! Or these awards may soon become irrelevant.
