Since 1958, the country of Hungary has awarded “Athlete of the Year” honors to the men and women as voted by the nation’s sports journalists. This year, swimmers claimed both awards, with Laszlo Cseh voted top male and Katinka Hosszu voted top female for 2015.
At 30-years old, Cseh had one of the most memorable years of his career, winning the men’s 200 butterfly title in Kazan to become the first male swimmer to medal at 7 distinct World Championships. With his collection of butterfly medals across the 50m, 100m and 200m events, Cseh also made history in Kazan by becoming the first swimmer to claim medals in all three distances in the same stroke aside from freestyle.
Cseh also made a major impact at the European Short Course Championships in Netanya, Israel, where the Magyar scored an additional three gold medals, registering two European Records in the process.
For her part, Hosszu concluded another monster season of racing which included two individual World Championships titles. Hosszu topped the podium in Kazan in both of the IM events, scoring her first long course World Record in the 200m IM event.
At the European Short Course Championships Hosszu brought home an incredible 6 gold medals and 1 silver, representing the best ever individual showing in the history of that meet. Hosszu also passed her 200th World Cup medal en route to winning the overall 2015 World Cup, her 5th consecutive title.
The awards were physically given yesterday, January 14th, at a ceremony at Budapest’s National Theater. Although Cseh personally accepted his award, Hosszu’s mother stood in for the world record holder and accepted the trophy in her daughter’s absence.
Hosszu is currently in Austin competing at this weekend’s Arena Pro Swim Series event, which, as we reported, caused quite a stir with the Hungarian Swimming Federation.
Per Hosszu’s social media accounts, she commented, “Thank you so much for the award! It’s a huge honor! It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t be there, but my mom was beautiful.”