The nominees for the 2018 USA Swimming Golden Goggles Awards, the organization’s annual gala and awards show, have been announced. In total, 15 athletes and 5 coaches have been nominated for awards based on their performances in 2018, with the honors, as usual, slanted heavily toward the year’s ‘Operation Gold’ meet, which was the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.
Fan voting for the winners will be open now through November 9th, and that public vote will account for an unstated percentage of the final decision.
Ryan Murphy leads all individuals with 3 nominations (Male Athlete of the Year, Male Race of the Year, and Relay Performance of the Year), while Katie Ledecky and Kathleen Baker are each nominated for the same 2 awards (Female Athlete of the Year, Female Race of the Year). This makes for a rare occasion where non-Operation Gold races are considered (last year, all 8 races nominated were from the World Championships) – Baker and Ledecky were both nominated for World Record swims at meets outside of Pan Pacs.
2018 is the 15th edition of the meet, and the event will be emceed by actor and comedian John O’Hurley, perhaps best known as J. Peterman on the legendary NBC sitcom Seinfeld. The event will be hosted at the Times Square Sheraton in New York City.
SwimSwam will release our choices for the awards later today.
2018 Golden Goggles Nominees – Full List
Breakout Performer of the Year
- Michael Andrew
- Zach Harting
- Austin Katz
- Andrew Seliskar
Perseverance Award
- Ella Eastin
- Katie McLaughlin
- Micah Sumrall
Coach of the Year
- Jack Bauerle
- Dave Durden
- David Marsh
- Teri McKeever
- Greg Meehan
Relay Performance of the Year
- Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
- Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
Female Race of the Year
- Katie Ledecky, 1500m Freestyle, 2018 TYR Pro Swim Series at Indianapolis
- Kathleen Baker, 100m Backstroke, 2018 Phillips 66 U.S. National Championships
- Micah Sumrall, 200m Breaststroke, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
- Haley Anderson, Open Water 10K, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
Male Race of the Year
- Michael Andrew, 50m Freestyle, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
- Zane Grothe, 800m Freestyle, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
- Ryan Murphy, 100m Backstroke, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
- Chase Kalisz, 200m Individual Medley, 2018 Pan Pacific Championships
Female Athlete of the Year
- Haley Anderson
- Kathleen Baker
- Katie Ledecky
Male Athlete of the Year
- Chase Kalisz
- Ryan Murphy
- Jordan Wilimovsky
How is jack saunderson not even nominated for breakout performance of the year? Name a bigger dark horse that was the number 1 seed at finals in the 100 fly at US Nationals coming out of nowhere and made the national team I’ll wait.
Like Carson Foster, I understand he didn’t qualify for Pan Pacs and went to Jr. Pan Pacs instead, but I feel like he still deserves an honorable mention
Where is Jack Saunderson??
Good list of nominees! Interesting that not all the races of the year are international- I wonder if that happens often