Let’s look at awards for top athletes beyond face value

My senior in this profession recently said that ceremonies such as the Globe Soccer Awards, Ballon d’Or, and World Athlete of the Year awards simply need to be ignored completely. 

He added that the only “individual awards” that should remain are the Golden Glove and Golden Boot since those are straightforward and predictable since statistics do all the talking. I agree to a small extent, but these ceremonies do highlight a very dicey state of affairs when it comes to individual honours in sport.

Earlier this week in Monaco, as everyone including my cat had predicted, Faith Kipyegon and Kelvin Kiptum were feted as the male and female athletes of the year. But, everyone seems to have been left with a sour taste in the mouth since the organisers departed from tradition and instead feted six finalists, not two while categorising them into ‘track, field and out of stadia.’

Observers and athletes were all caught by surprise as the six awardees’ names were called one after the other in quick succession, and there is simmering disgruntlement that the decision watered down Kipyegon and Kiptum’s moment as the best athletes we have seen this season. 

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe explained that because of the depth of talent and the outstanding performances witnessed in the sport this year, it was impossible to limit the contest to just one athlete from each gender.

This makes sense at face value, but it also prompts a rethink as to what really constitutes the world’s best athlete.

And if face value is the point from which we are viewing this matter, then Kiptum and Kipyegon were robbed, plain and simple, because they were hands down the best athletes this season.

But face value is too narrow a way of looking at things, and a legitimate argument can be made that if we continue to evaluate players in the same old overly-simplistic manner, the sports realm might never be able to shake its habit of only seeing its high achieving talents for their popularity and numbers they command. 

To be fair, Lionel Messi is different from Cristiano Ronaldo. Noah Lyles is different from Kiptum. Tigist Assefa is different from Kipyegon. They all have different strengths and compete in different categories.

How then can we judge them using the same metrics? If we do so, such affairs will remain a subjective matter of who deems what to be an extraordinary achievement or who felt most moved by which performance. And that is the most important part of the debate. 

Comparison of athletes competing in different categories or among players playing in different positions is awkward to the point of futility, and if left unchecked, may diminish the true prestige of the awards and lead us to where the Ballon d’Or currently is –extremely diminished in terms of stature. 

That said, awards like these are good as they will show future generations the brilliance of some of the finest individual players the world has seen.

And because the winners in athletics are new almost every season (unlike in football, meh), the nominees and winners present us with a preview of what the future looks like without the likes of Usain Bolt, Eliud Kipchoge, or Genzebe Dibaba. Congratulations to the six winners, especially Kipyegon! 

[email protected]