Swimmers of the Year: The People's Choice

Swimming World and Junior Swimmer, Jan 2004

Last month we announced the winners of Swimming World's annual Swimmers of the Year awards: Michael Phelps (USA) and Hannah Stockbauer (GER).

This year, we invited our readers to vote for their choices online at SwimInfo.com. Here are the results, as of Dec. 1 (with SW's rank listed in parentheses):

Women

Amanda Beard, USA, 50.3% (3rd)

Yana Klochkova, UKR, 9.0% (2nd)

Jenny Thompson, USA, 8.3% (4th)

Men

Michael Phelps, USA, 41.4% (1st)

Alex Popov, RUS, 27.3% (3rd)

Ian Thorpe, AUS, 21.1% (4th)

Stockbauer finished fourth among our readers with 6.4 percent of the vote. Japan's Kosuke Kitajima, SW's pick for second among the men, was fifth with a meager 1.8 percent.