This time last year, in a fit of anger about what I, and many other people saw as the sexist and non-representative shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, I created my own awards… the Running and Endurance Sports Performance of the Year awards or the RESPYs.
If you have been reading this blog for a year or more, you’ll know that I was really overwhelmed by the response to the awards. I got emails and tweets and Facebook messages and even a carrier pigeon (OK that is not true, but it should have been) nominating men and women who had done amazing things in endurance sports in 2011 and deserved recognition for them. You can see the list that I had received after only a few days here.
In the end, after counting up all the votes that I received, the two performances – there is a RESPY for men and one of women – went to Chrissie Wellington, for her epic and utterly amazing win at Kona despite a terrible crash on the bike in training just before the race, and Scott Overall for his equally amazing debut marathon in Berlin, with a finishing time of 2:10:55. You can read about the winners here. 
Now the RESPYs are back!
2012 has undoubtedly been one of the most amazing years for sport in this country for a very, very long time. And endurance sport has had its fair share of wonderful moments in 2012. I am not going to risk swaying the nominations but mentioning any performances, but inspiration has not been in short supply.
What I am hoping to do, is uncover another treasure-trove of endurance sport performances that should be celebrated from 2012 and then allow anyone who cares to, to vote on them and pick another two winners. There are only a couple of guidelines:
- ANYONE can be nominated – the RESPY could well go to someone who didn’t feature on the back pages or indeed any pages of the national or even the specialist press in 2012. Some of the most amazing stories from last year’s RESPYs were those of people I had never heard of, doing amazing things and pushing themselves to the limits for nothing more than the love of endurance sports
- I’m after outstanding performances in 2012, so please make sure you tell me what your nominee has done that justifies the RESPY
- Nominate yourself or someone else, but if you do nominate someone else and they are not world famous, maybe mention it to them, so they’re not shocked if they win and I turn up on the doorstep with a trophy
- Nominate as many people as you want
- Please don’t nominate Ron Hill again… in fact, that nomination was hilarious, so maybe you should
I really want this to be a celebration of all the things that are great about endurance sport and there are some truly amazing stories out there, so get thinking. All you have to do to nominate is send an email to respy@simonfreeman.co.uk or tweet me @simon_freeman (though I doubt 140 characters will let you tell me much of a story!) or you can simply reply to this post and put your nomination in there.
I can’t wait to read about the amazing running and endurance feats in 2012 and sharing them all with you. Thank you for your support.
Hi Simon
My nomination is Katie White – First Female home at this year’s Liverpool Marathon – in a time of 3:01:40 – AFTER BREAKING HER LEG AT MILE FIVE
Full story here – http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/runner-completed-liverpool-marathon-with-broken-1405705
Amazing.
Hi Simon,
My nomination would have to go to Alan MacPherson – the first Briton to break the 30 hour barrier at the Ultraman event in Hawaii.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-20667318
Alan also suffers from Crohns disease making his achiievements even more impressive. He is on daily medication and regularly undergoes intravenous treatment just to help keep his Crohns under control. As the husband of a Crohns sufferer I know firsthand just how debilitating this condition is.
Cheers!
Hi Simon
Great award, love the spirit of the RESPY’s. My nominations:
Leanda Cave – for doing the Double! She battled injury and illness at the start of the year to come through firing, Winning the Ironman 70.3 World Champs, then going straight out to Kona a month or so later and had to put together a real battle of a run leg to take the victory to become the World Champion and the first ever woman to do the double.
My next victory, if that’s allowed….is for David Weir. I know he was up for some small award called the SPOTY (or something like that?!). But i thought he was absolutley phenominal at the Paralympics, another level. The raw talent, power, drive and emotion he showed was something else. To win across such a HUGE range of distances is almost unheard of in athletics, image one athlete in the Olympics winning the 5000, 1500, 800 and then going on to dominate the Marathon – all in the same Olympics. That is incredibe.
Of course when i say “my next victory”, i really mean “my next nomination!!”