Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles and American snowboarder Chloe Kim have been named the United States Sports Academy’s Male and Female Athletes of the Month for February.
Foles was named the MVP of Super Bowl LII as he completed 28 of 43 passes for 373 yards, three touchdown passes and one touchdown catch as the Eagles defeated the New England Patriots 41-33 in Minneapolis, Minn., on 4 February 2018.
Kim, 17, became the youngest woman ever to win gold in Olympic snowboarding when she won the halfpipe event with a high score of 92.75 in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. She is also the youngest woman to win a gold medal on snow at the Winter Olympics, breaking the record set by Swiss skier Michela Figini in 1984.
The second place finisher on the men’s side was French biathlete Martin Fourcade and third place went to American sprinter Christian Coleman.
Fourcade won three gold medals at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in February. The biathlon athlete won the 15 kilometer mass start and pursuit events and also won gold in a mixed relay event for France.
Coleman broke the indoor world record with a time of 6.34 seconds in the 60 meter final at the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships on 18 February 2018 in Albuquerque, N.M.
The second place finisher on the women’s side was American hockey player Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and third place went to Russian figure skater Alina Zagitova.
Lamoureux-Davidson led the United States with four goals in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics women’s hockey tournament, including the game-winner in a shootout in the team’s 3-2 gold medal game win against Canada. She was also named to the women’s hockey all-tournament team as a forward.
Representing the Olympic Athletes of Russia (OAR), Zagitova took gold in the women’s singles figure skating event at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Zagitova scored 239.57 points in the free skate and short program to hold off compatriot and event favorite Evgenia Medvedeva by just over one point. At 15 years and 281 days old, Zagitova is the second-youngest Olympic women’s gold medalist in history.
Each month, the public is invited to participate in the Academy’s worldwide Athlete of the Month program by nominating athletes and then voting online during the first week of every month. The online votes are used to guide the Academy selection committee in choosing the male and female monthly winners, who then become eligible for selection to the prestigious Athlete of the Year ballot. A worldwide public vote on the annual ballot is used to guide the committee in making the final selection.
The Athlete of the Year Award is part of the United States Sports Academy’s Awards of Sport program, which each year serves as “A Tribute to the Artist and the Athlete.” The Academy presents the awards to pay tribute to those who have made significant contributions to sport, in categories as diverse as the artist and the athlete in several different arenas of sport.
The awards honor exemplary achievement in coaching, all-around athletic performance, courage, humanitarian activity, fitness and media, among others. The Academy’s American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) annually recognizes these men and women through its Sport Artist of the Year, Honorary Doctorates, Medallion Series, Distinguished Service Awards, Outstanding Athletes, and Alumni of the Year awards. This is the 34th year of the Academy’s Awards of Sport program.
The United States Sports Academy is an independent, non-profit, accredited, special mission sports university created to serve the nation and world with programs in instruction, research and service. The role of the Academy is to prepare men and women for careers in the profession of sports.
Founded in 1984, ASAMA is dedicated to the preservation of sports art, history, and literature. The ASAMA collection is composed of more than 1,800 works of sport art across a variety of media, including paintings, sculptures, assemblages, prints and photographs. The museum is open free to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. For more information, go to www.asama.org.
The Academy is based in Daphne, Ala. For more information, call (251) 626-3303 or visit www.ussa.edu.
By Eric Mann
Eric Mann is the communications assistant at the United States Sports Academy.