FEATURES

National Honorees - 2012 - 2018...

Thursday, 02 January 2020 23:10

Historically, Minnesotans have been prominent among the USA Triathlon's post-season honorees. In 2015, for instance, eleven of our state's best multisporters earned 12 honors. Granted, that was a special year, owing no doubt to the fact that Duathlon Nationals were staged in St. Paul. USAT leans heavily on it's own championship races, as well as larger events that are sanctioned by the Federation, when determining their "Athlete of the Year" selections.

We respect their criteria, though it differs from MMH rationale, which favors head-to-head results, and gives full weight to performances in non-sanctiond races.

Today we are listing Minnesota's honorees during the period between 2012 and 2018, though not before we drop some names of Minnesota athletes that were honored prior to that period: Cathy Yndestad, David Thompson, Brian Bich, Devon Palmer, Tony Schiller, Jan Guenther, Kevin O'Connor...

Noting that Minnesotans were not well-repped in 2017 and 2018, we are optimistic that when the 2019 AOYs are announced, four of our state's athletes will be featured. We contend that that foursome fulfilled USAT's criteria, and we would be shocked if any of them were overlooked. We will feature those athletes in our next post....

Minnesota's USAT Honorees - 2011 - 2018:

2018:

- GABY BUNTEN - Women's Open HM (The MMH Selectors were surprised that Gaby wasn't named Women's Open AOY. The award was given to uber-decorated Tennessee athlete Kirsten Sass, who Gaby beat twice in '18.)

2017 - No Honorees