The 2024 Golden Goggles Awards are heading to the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown, simply footsteps from Lucas Oil Stadium that performed host to the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in June, residence to the biggest crowds that swimming has ever seen, at the least within the fashionable period.
Town will now welcome again the game’s greatest, this time buying and selling their fits and goggles for various sorts of fits and different modern eveningwear because the governing physique for worldwide swimming within the U.S. decides its better of the yr.
- Vote on your decisions right here. It’s unclear how these votes weigh, if in any respect, and the outcomes of the fan vote haven’t been public lately.
As you’re employed via your picks, under is SwimSwam’s official poll of who we assume ought to win every award. Remember that USA Swimming chooses the nominees and award winners primarily based virtually completely on the outcomes of the yr’s major lengthy course meet – on this case the Olympic Video games.
Whereas we acknowledge that this meet ought to be weighed closely, we put somewhat extra emphasis on the remainder of the outcomes of the season.
2024 Golden Goggle Awards Nominees – SwimSwam Official Poll
BREAKOUT PERFORMER
This award is given to the athlete whose efficiency(s) stand out in relation to different years, with particular emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
This one appears fairly clear reduce to me. Three of those swimmers have been on the 2023 World Championship roster. Gretchen Walsh even received a medal at these World Championships within the 50 fly.
Aaron Shackell entered 2024 with a greatest of three:47.00 within the 400 free. His sister was the best-known of the three Shackell siblings coming into the summer season, however Aaron broke via in an enormous means on the Olympic Trials, not simply making the group however successful the 400 free in Indianapolis, near his residence city of Carmel.
It got here in a rocky yr too, one the place he began at Cal earlier than returning to Carmel to make his last preparations for the Video games.
On the Olympics, he swam 3:45.45 to make the ultimate as effectively, finally ending eighth.
My guess is that the award will go to Walsh due to her World Document, however I believe the amplitude of Shackell’s breakout ought to be the winner.
I believed Emma Weber or Paige Madden may have been legitimate nominees as effectively. I might need chosen Madden if she have been an possibility, although USA Swimming put her within the Perseverance class as an alternative (in all probability due to her age).
COACH OF THE YEAR
This award is given to the coach whose athlete(s) carried out on the highest degree all year long, with particular emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
That is all the time such a difficult award. I believe it’s clear that Bob Bowman had one of the best yr amongst American coaches. He’ll in all probability win our Swammy award in December. However his greatest successes have been with a French swimmer Leon Marchand, a Hungarian swimmer Hubert Kos, and his faculty group Arizona State.
However I believe you may justify him taking this award even for those who ignore that. Regan Smith had 5 medals (2 gold, 3 silver); Simone Manuel had an enormous bounceback yr to make the Olympic Workforce; and alongside along with his high assistant (and now substitute at Arizona State) Herbie Behm, they put a bunch of swimmers on the American group too.
If we whittle it down to only work with American athletes, I believe all 4 nominees have an equally-strong case. What Greg Meehan to convey Torri Huske from a disappointing meet final yr to arguably one of the best performer for Workforce USA, high to backside, in Paris was masterful. Anthony Nesty main Ledecky to extra golds and Bobby Finke to the World Document was the increase that the U.S. wanted to salvage a troublesome meet. Todd DeSorbo loaded up the ladies’s Olympic Workforce, together with 200 IM champion Kate Douglass, and one of many massive surprises of the meet: placing Emma Weber on the Olympic Workforce.
If I needed to restrict the selection to simply American swimmers, it’s powerful however I believe I’d go… DeSorbo. Whereas Meehan with Huske was one of the best single athlete teaching efficiency of the yr, what DeSorbo did with a breadth of girls, plus the NCAA title, that’s the sting for me.
Additionally, no Dave Durden nomination is an anomaly, however a justified one, for one in all America’s most constant coaches on the worldwide stage during the last decade.
FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
This award is given to the highest feminine swimmer of the yr with particular emphasis on achievements on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
That is one other one which comes right down to a worth judgement, what you assume is most necessary. Torri Huske‘s efficiency was the one which the U.S. wanted essentially the most, particularly with what she did on the relays. Katie Ledecky‘s continued excellence, successful two particular person gold medals and being resilient to a number of the greatest challenges she’s had shortly shouldn’t be underappreciated simply because she’s completed it so many instances.
Some will utterly low cost Huske’s medal performances, however I don’t assume that’s honest. She was the essential leg on a lot of relays for Workforce USA. She held off China within the combined 400 medley relay and outsplit Australian star Mollie O’Callaghan. The U.S. was by no means going to catch Australia within the 400 free relay, however her 52.06 there was the distinction versus China for silver. Huske beat the newly-minted World Document breaker Gretchen Walsh within the 100 fly last.
I believe Huske’s swims simply meant extra, however I’m keen to simply accept the counter argument.
FEMALE RACE OF THE YEAR
This award is given to the feminine swimmer with the best single particular person race of the yr, with particular emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
One other powerful one. All three nice swims (I presume all are referencing the Olympic finals).
Huske beat the World Document holder (Walsh), the one of the three who can declare that. Ledecky broke the Olympic Document, the one of the three who can declare that. Douglass was the one of the three who swam a lifetime greatest on the Olympics.
I’m going to knock out Douglass as a result of the world’s greatest in that occasion, Evgeniia Chikunova, wasn’t on the Olympics. I believe the character of Huske’s win was most spectacular, so I’ll make her my alternative once more.
Ledecky in all probability wins at the least one of many above two awards, as a result of USA Swimming determination makers know that she is the group’s greatest ticket proper now.
FRAN CRIPPEN OPEN WATER SWIMMER OF THE YEAR
This award is given to the athlete who had essentially the most excellent yr as an open water swimmer, with an emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
Grimes was fifteenth on the Olympics, Denigan was sixteenth, and Puskovitch was nineteenth, so all three have been in a fairly related place. It’s type of a coin toss, and I assume the award will go to Grimes as a result of she was one of the best finisher on the Olympics, so I’ll make her my alternative too.
MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
This award is given to the highest male swimmer of the yr with particular emphasis on achievements on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
This seems like a slam dunk. The gold medalist, the World Document breaker, Bobby Finke successful his second Male Athlete of the Yr Award (2022).
MALE RACE OF THE YEAR
This award is given to the male swimmer with the best single particular person race of the yr, with particular emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
Cherished that Luke Hobson swim, however as soon as once more, I believe this alternative is fairly apparent. The one particular person males’s gold medal, saving the temper of the meet for the Individuals and serving to with a last day topping of the medals desk: Bobby Finke.
If he wins, he would develop into the second swimmer to win this award 4 straight years, becoming a member of Michael Phelps from 2006-2009. Katie Ledecky additionally received the ladies’s award for 4 consecutive years from 2012-2015.
PERSEVERANCE AWARD
This award is given to the athlete who got here again from adversity, retirement, illness, damage, and many others., to have an excellent efficiency(s) in 2024, with particular emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
Usually I type of hate this award, as a result of it’s so exhausting to peg down what they imply by “perseverance,” however this yr, I believe there are two athletes who completely deserve it.
Caeleb Dressel discovered his means again to Workforce USA after the well-known breakdown on the 2022 World Championships that compelled him to go away that meet early, and received three relay medals (gold, gold, silver).
Simone Manuel handled overtraining syndrome in 2021, and likewise discovered her means again to Workforce USA this summer season, successful a pair of silver relay medals.
Each swimmers have been as soon as the celebs of Workforce USA. Neither swimmer was significantly near a person medal.
Finally, Dressel had the higher finishes on the Olympics, (sixth within the 50 free, three medals), in order that’s my tie breaker.
RELAY PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR
This award is given to one of the best group relay efficiency, male or feminine. The efficiency thought-about have to be a finals efficiency, with particular emphasis on the 2024 Olympic Video games.
- Males’s 4x100m freestyle relay
- Combined 4x100m medley relay
- Girls’s 4x100m medley relay (SwimSwam’s Choose)
All three nice relay performances, all three gold medals, however let’s zero in on the ladies’s 400 medley and combined 400 medley, which additionally broke World Information.
The combined medley was the higher race in {that a} gutsy anchor from Torri Huske pulled out a really tight win for Workforce USA, however I believe the ladies’s medley relay, with all 4 swimmers firing and successful by three and a half seconds within the Olympic last, is one of the best efficiency. That one actually highlighted a spot the place Workforce USA was actually good, as a gaggle, in a meet the place there not many spots to flash that high quality.
