Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy are the only golfers among 26 on a ‘longlist’ of nominees for the annual RTE ‘Sportsperson of the Year’ award to be presented on December 14th.
McIlroy is a previous winner of the award and so too is boxer Katie Taylor and with the duo along with Lowry favourites to be presented with the award.
Also, and a strong favourite is Dublin’s Stephen Cluxton and the most-capped Gaelic footballer in history who also led his team to an historic five-in-row victories.
Just a few days ago, Cluxton was awarded the Irish Independent ‘Player of the Millennium’.
However, golf does have a good ‘victory’ record when it comes to the RTE award and this give since the inaugural award in 1988 golf has prevailed on eight occasions. The most-recent was McIlroy in 2014 and acclaimed that year for winning two majors in the one year and also becoming the first European to win three different majors.
If Lowry should be nervous, he will find comfort that each year Padraig Harrington (2007 & 2008), Graeme McDowell (2010), Rory McIlroy (2011 & 2014) won their majors they were honoured with the RTE Sportsperson of the Year award.
The only major winner not honoured was Darren Clarke who won the 2011 Open Championship but then given the record-breaking nature of McIlroy’s win earlier that year at Congressional, it could only be McIlroy.
One would like to think, and given the enormity and historic value of Lowry’s 148th Open Championship victory over the world’s best, he will prevail on Saturday December 14th live on RTE TV.
And in a new voting format this year the winner will be chosen by a judging panel rather than being open to a public vote.
The current ‘longlist’ of 16 (below) will be shortened just prior to the final vote.
List in full:
Sam Bennett – Cycling
Lydia Boylan – Cycling
Jack Byrne – Soccer
Seamus Callanan – Hurling
Stephen Cluxton – Football
Cathal Daniels – Equestrian
Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal – Cycling
Ellen Keane – Swimming
Sinead Goldrick – Football
Niamh Kilkenny – Camogie
Shane Lowry – Golf
Ciara Mageean – Athletics
Rhys McClenaghan – Gymnastics
Rory McIlroy – Golf
Oisin Murphy – Equestrian
Donnacha O’Brien – Equestrian
Aoife O’Rourke – Boxing
Denise O’Sullivan – Soccer
Sanita Puspure – Rowing
Jonathan Rea – Motorcycling
Davy Russell – Equestrian
Jason Smyth – Athletics
Katie Taylor – Boxing
Paul Townend – Equestrian
Nicole Turner – Swimming
Kurt Walker – Boxing
