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2014 POY: "Premier" Trumps "Prestige"...

Thursday, 02 October 2014 00:10

Minnesota Multisport Awards - In the Performance of the Year category, a single athlete, by rule, can have no more than two nominations. It was especially difficult this year limiting our choices for Dani Fischer and Heather Lendway (photo L), both of whom excelled on the world and national stages and recorded nearly 20 victories between them....

The next biggest issue the Selectors had to deal with was distinguishing between prestige and premier. For instance, was Heather Lendway's ultra-prestigious win at Nationals a more worthy POY candidate than her crushing course records at any of several regional events, like Lake Minnetonka, Chisago Sprint, and Square Lake, which she won outright, or One Last Tri?

Unanimously, the MMA Committee decided to seek out the BEST performances, not those that may be perceived as "most significant."

Here are the four nominations for 2014 Performance of the Year by a woman:

- DANI FISCHER (26, Wausau, WI photo L)) - Dominating victory at the USAT Long Distance National Championships in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her brilliant time was 4:23, the fastest 70.3 clocking by an amateur woman in our region. It may have been the fastest amateur half IM performance of the the year in the US. We're researching that right now. Additionally, her margin of victory was 4:27 over runner-up Kirsten Sass, the 2013 US Athlete of the Year.

- DANI FISCHER - Dominating victory at the Best of the US Championship in St. Paul last June. In this performance she beat runner-up Jennifer Garrision (IL), a two-time US National Champion, by 4:07. She beat 3rd place Kirsten Sass (TN), the 2013 US AOY, by 5:30.

HEATHER LENDWAY (30, St. Paul) - Course Record victory at Lake Minnetonka Triathlon. It's impossible to exaggerate how amazing her 1:04:53 clocking was. Not only did it crush the women's CR by 5:18, it landed her in 2nd place overall AND redefined the "elite" performance standards for amateur men. Her time would have won this race outright in 2012, 2011, 2006 and 2004. FYI, her margin of victory was 6:31.

HEATHER LENDWAY - Course Record victory at Life Time Tri - Minneapolis. This race boasted a women's elite amateur field that rivaled USAT Nationals. In fact, the podium here was the same one that went 1-2-3 at the Edmonton World Championships. Those women are the frontrunners in the race for 2014 US AOY. At Minneapolis, HL lowered the women's CR from 2:10:52 (Catherine Sterling in 2011) to 2:06:21, and bettered Robin Pomeroy's (CA) 2nd-place time by 3:47.

Other performances, in alpha order, that were considered: