Mexican golfer Loren Ochoa was the overwhelming choice as the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year, winning the award for the second straight year.
Ochoa received 71 votes from members of the Associated Press in the US, equal to the combined total of the next seven athletes below her on the list.
She joined Annika Sorenstam, Kathy Whitworth, Mickey Wright and Babe Zaharias as the only golfers to win the award in consecutive years. Sorenstam won three straight before Ochoa took it last year.
"Being compared with such exceptional players makes me feel honored," Ochoa said in an e-mail from Mexico. "My main goal is to maintain myself as the No. 1. Therefore, I can promise to keep improving."
Justine Henin, who won her third straight French Open title in tennis, was second with 17 votes. Rounding out the top five were British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe, University of Tennessee basketball player Candace Parker and Allyson Felix, only the second woman in history to win three gold medals at the World Athletics Championships.
Tom Brady, who led the New England Patriots to 14 consecutive wins and was on pace to break the NFL single season touchdown pass record of 49, was the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year.
Brady received 51 votes, 18 more than runner-up Roger Federer, the Swiss tennis star who won his fifth consecutive Wimbledon and fourth consecutive US Open titles, his 11th and 12th Grand Slam titles.
Barry Bonds, who set Major League Baseball's career home run record and was later indicted on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice for telling a BALCO grand jury in 2003 that he never knowingly took illegal performance-enhancing drugs, was named Story of the Year with 1,352 points.
Michael Vick pleading guilty to a federal charge he ran a dogfighting ring was second with 1,154 points; former NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleading guilty to federal charges he bet on games he officiated and made calls affecting the point spread in those games was third with 836.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS