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US Amateur Performances of the Year...

Tuesday, 15 January 2013 00:10

(Photos - Coloradan Kendra Lee, who looks a lot like Diane Hankee, and Twin Citizen Dan Hedgecock, who we believe turned in the US Amateur Performances of the Year in 2012.)

A guy asked us recently who we thought would win the currently non-existent award for "US Amateur Performance of the Year" (for 2012). After thinking about it for almost a minute, we replied: "Kendra Lee's overall women's win at Ironman Canada" and Dan Hedgecock's course record at Hy-Vee 5150 Elite Championship....

To us, Kendra's effort was a slam dunk, whereas Hedge's performance was seriously challenged by the one turned in by Drew Scott at Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3, where her beat everyone, pros included, and set an amateur CR of 4:01.BSLT is not a piece-of-cake, folks.

Here's why we think Lee and Hedgecock deserve the fictitious awards and our picks for the Top 5 male and US female amateur performances of 2012:

KENDRA LEE, 32, Denver, Colorado

What impressed us most was NOT that she beat the pro women at Ironman Canada (the women's elite field was thinner than usual last year), it was her amateur CR time on the challenging British Columbia course: 9:44:58.. Though a few American amateur women have gone faster in the past, albeit on crepe-flat courses--e.g. Lisbeth Kenyon's 9:41 at Ironman Florida and Kelly Fillnow's 9:29 at IM Austria, for instance--no US