Olimpia Award
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Olimpia Award is a sport award in Argentina, given every year by the Argentine Sports Journalists' Circle since 1954.
An Olimpia de Plata (Silver Olimpia) is awarded to one of the candidates of each one of the 41 sports disciplines. Among the Silver winners an Olimpia de Oro (Golden Olimpia) is awarded to the most important sports-person of the year.
The current categories are: chess, athletics, auto racing, basketball, baseball, billiards, bocce, boxing, cestoball, cycling, equestrianism, fencing, football (soccer), futsal, gymnastics, golf, handball, field hockey, rink hockey, judo, kayaking, motorcycling, motorboating, Padel Tennis, rowing, skating, skiing, swimming, pato, pelota, rugby union, softball, squash, taekwondo, tennis, table tennis, shooting, turf, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and yachting.
The football Olimpia is considered the official Player of the Year of Argentina, though it also includes foreign footballers playing in Argentina.
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[edit] History
The first Golden Olimpia award was given to Juan Manuel Fangio in 1954 in the Luna Park stadium, and the first woman to receive it was tennis player Norma Baylon in 1962, who reached 8th place in that year's world rankings. Other individual women to win the Olimpia de Oro were tennis player Gabriela Sabatini in 1987 and 1988 and roller skaters Nora Vega in 1995, Andrea González in 1998, and field hockey player Cecilia Rognoni in 2002. The women's national field hockey team, known in Argentina as Las Leonas, won the award collectively in 2000, becoming the only team so honored to date.
Boxer Santos Benigno Laciar is the only person to receive 3 consecutive Golden Olimpias in 1982, 1983 and 1984, by conquering and retained the world flyweight title. Tennis player Guillermo Vilas also received 3 golden awards, in 1974, 1975 and 1977. The only other people with consecutive Golden Olimpias are Sabatini and basketball player Manu Ginóbili, who won the award by himself in 2003 and shared it in 2004. Four others have received 2 Olimpias de Oro: golfer Roberto de Vicenzo in 1967 and 1970, rower Alberto Demiddi in 1969 and 1971, Diego Maradona in 1979 and 1986, and Rognoni as a member of Las Leonas in 2000 and by herself in 2002.
The Olimpia de Oro has only been shared once in its history—in 2004, with Ginóbili sharing the honors with footballer Carlos Tévez.
The only Olimpia de Platino (Platinum Olimpia) was awarded at the end of the 20th century to Diego Maradona, as the best sports-person of the century.
The award consists of a 37-cm-high metallic statue designed by sculptor Mario Chiérico.
[edit] Olimpia de Oro winners
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ "Cabrera named Argentine Sportsperson of the Year", European Tour, 2008-01-03. Retrieved on 2008-01-13.
[edit] External links
- Circulo de Periodistas Deportivos' official site (in Spanish)
- List of Golden Olimpias by year (not updated since 2003)
- List of Silver Olimpias by Sport (in Spanish)
- Olimpia special mention at Konex Awards (in Spanish)
- List of all Olimpias de Oro from 1954-2006 (in Spanish)
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