Swedish sprinting siren, Sarah Sjostrom, was honored with her country’s Jerring Sports Achievement Award for the second consecutive year. The award is given by the Sweden’s public service radio and is considered the country’s most prestigious athlete honor.
Sjostrom had another stellar year in the pool, as her 2015 included winning 5 medals at the 2015 FINA World Championships, including individual golds in the women’s 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly events. Sjostrom raced her way to a new World Record of 55.64 in the latter, setting the stage for a potentially historic swim come the 2016 Olympics.
Of being honored with the award for the 2nd year in a row, 22-year-old Sjostrom joked, “The bowl is not as heavy this year, or maybe I have become stronger.”
Sjostrom went on to say, “This is completely fantastic, wow. I do not know what to say. I want to thank all those who voted for me and who have been a big support for me in my venture. Without you I would never had managed to go on fighting with the sport, thanks a lot.”
The Swedish sprinter is among the favorites to contend for a medal in the women’s 50m free, 100m free, 100m butterfly and possibly 200 free, along with relays at the 2016 Olympic Games. As far as her preparation for Rio is coming along, Sjostrom stated, “It is going really well. I was recently in Texas and competed and have had a great start to the year, I have never been this fast this early in the year in a competition, so now it is just to continue and try to swim even faster in the coming competitions.”
While competing at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Austin earlier this month, Sjostrom took the field by storm, clocking new U.S. Open Records in the 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly races, while also winning the 50m freestyle.
It should be noted that while the public radio hosts this prize and determines the nomiees, the rest of it is completely up to fan (phone) voting. Sarah was one of 13 nominations this year and got something like 35% of all the votes and 40 000 more votes than the runner-up.
Sarah also won the other big award this year, “Bragdguldet”(achievement of the year, loosely translated) which is decided by a jury of journalists and former athletes. Some would say that is the bigger prize of the two, but this one has more of a suspense attached to it as the winner is revealed at the very end of every year’s sports gala.
Hmmmmm. “Swedish sprinting siren”? I’ll go with “Swedish sprinting superstar.” Since she had a STELLAR not sireny year.
She is quite the siren, too…