Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka and Polish striker Robert Lewandowski have been named AIPS Best Athletes of 2020. Bayern Munich won Best Team after breaking a plethora of records along the way that led to them winning five trophies. This is the result of the survey by the International Association of Sports Press (AIPS), where a panel of 422 journalists from 116 countries voted for the 2020 Champions.
This is the first time that Lewandowski and Osaka have won the prestigious accolade that annually attracts votes from a wide network of professionals around the world.
Bayern Munich’s goal machine, Lewandowski, scored 620 points, enough to beat seven-time Formula One world champion, Britain’s Lewis Hamilton who scored 546 points, and Spaniard Rafael Nadal, winner of 20 tennis Grand Slam, who ranked third with 378 points.
Osaka, a three-time Grand Slam champion, topped the AIPS poll as Best Female Athlete with 526 points ahead of Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas (331 points), who holds the world record for Indoor Triple Jump, and the legend. Serena Williams, who won her 73rd 2020 WTA title, the ASB Classic and was third with 327 points.
Six-time UEFA Champions League winner Bayern Munich dominated the Best Team poll, receiving a total of 1,317 points, followed by current Premier League champions Liverpool with 753 points, while the 2020 NBA champions Los Angeles Lakers had to settle for third place by scoring 658 points.
AIPS decided not to present the one-time award for best press facility, as no major international or continental sporting events were held under normal circumstances in 2020. We hope to present the award again in 2021.
BEST MALE ATHLETE 2020
Robert Lewandowski, 32, born in Warsaw, Poland, has been in top form for the past year, contributing a grand sum of 55 goals in 47 games to Bayern Munich’s exceptional hat-trick in 2019/20.
He won the German League and Cup double as well as the Champions League with Bayern and finished as the top scorer in all three competitions – top scorer for the third time in a row in the Bundesliga and the fourth year in a row in the DFB Cup. He won five trophies in total with Bayern Munich in 2020, including the UEFA Super Cup and the German Super Cup.
On December 16, 2020, the prolific forward became the third player in Bundesliga history to score 250 goals and the first non-German to reach that milestone. He scored more competitive goals in calendar 2020 (47) than any other player in Europe’s major leagues, breaking the 40-goal mark in all competitions for the fourth consecutive year.
Lewandowski won the Bundesliga Player of the Season, UEFA Player of the Year and FIFA Best Player awards. He was also named “Player of the Year” at the Globe Soccer Awards and could have easily won the 2020 Ballon d’Or award had it not been canceled.
BEST MALE ATHLETE – TOP 10
1 – Lewandowski Robert – Soccer 620 (16.32%)
2 – Hamilton Lewis – Formula 1 – 546 (14.38%)
3 – Nadal Rafael – Tennis – 378 (9.95%)
4 – James LeBron – Basketball – 361 (9.51%)
5 – Duplantis Armand – Athletics – 347 (9.14%)
6 – Ronaldo Cristiano – Football – 300 (7.9%)
7 – Djokovic Novak – Tennis – 280 (7.37%)
8 – Cheptegei Joshua – Athletics – 181 (4.77%)
9 – Pogacar Tadej – Ciclismo – 179 (4.71%)
10 – Thiem Dominic – Tennis – 104 (2.74%)
BEST FEMALE ATHLETE 2020
Naomi Osaka, 23, born in Chūō-ku, Japan to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, moved with her family to New York when she was three years old. She first made headlines in 2016 at the age of 19, when she won the Women’s Tour Association (WTA) Rookie of the Year award after reaching her first WTA final and rising to the highest 40th place. of his career.
His victory in the US Open championship surely qualifies as one of the highlights of the 2020 tennis season, not only for his impressive athletic form but also for his extraordinary activism.
Osaka highlighted racial and social injustice throughout the tournament, where he wore seven black masks with the names of different victims, one for each round.
The highest paid and most tweeted female athlete of 2020 came from a set down to beat Victoria Azarenka and win her second US Open title in three years, and the third major of her career.
Before the US Open, Osaka reached the final of the Western & Southern Open but withdrew due to a left hamstring injury. He also made world headlines during that tournament for his decision to boycott his semifinal match in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a move that caused the tournament to pause play for the day.
Osaka rose to international fame when she defeated her idol Serena Williams in a controversial US Open final in 2018 to become the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam singles title. Then a year later, he landed his second major at the Australian Open in 2019.
BEST FEMALE ATHLETE – TOP 10
1 – Osaka Naomi – Tennis – 526 (13.85%)
2 – Rojas Yulimar – Athletics – 331 (8.72%)
3 – Williams Serena – Tenis – 327 (8,61%)
4 – Świątek Iga – Tennis – 310 (8.16%)
5 – Brignone Federica – Alpine Esquí – 245 (6.45%)
6 – Miedema Vivianne – Soccer – 211 (5.56%)
7 – Gidey Letesenbet – Athletics – 200 (5.27%)
8 – Jepchirchir Peres – Athletics – 186 (4.9%)
9 – Hassan Sifan – Athletics – 182 (4.79%)
10 – Shiffrin Mikaela – Alpine Skiing – 162 (4.27%)
BEST TEAM OF 2020
Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich became the second European club in history to achieve the continental treble twice after clinching the Bundesliga title for the eighth year in a row, retaining the German Cup and lifting their sixth UEFA title. Champions League in 2020.
The German giants became the first team to win every game in a UCL campaign and also the first team in Europe’s top five leagues to win 23 consecutive competitive matches.
Barcelona’s 8-2 humiliation in the Champions League quarter-finals is one of the most notable victories in Bayern’s record winning streak, which began against Cologne in February and ended with a loss to Hoffenheim in late September.
They won a total of five trophies in 2020, including the UEFA Super Cup and the German Super Cup.
Along with Lewandowski, Flick and Bayern Munich were also honored at the 2020 Globe Soccer Awards in recognition of the club’s outstanding year. Flick was named 2019/2020 UEFA Men’s Coach of the Year.
BEST TEAM – TOP 10
1 – FC Bayern Munich – Fútbol – 1317 (34,68%)
2 – Liverpool F.C. – Fútbol – 753 (19,83%)
3 – Los Angeles Lakers – Basketball – 658 (17.32%)
4 – Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team – Formula 1 – 436 (11.48%)
5 – Spanish Handball Team – Handball – 140 (3.69%)
6 – Timea Babos & Kristina Mladenovic – Tennis – 129 (3.4%)
7 – Norway Biathlon Team (Women) – Biathlon – 107 (2.82%)
8 – Swiss National Alpine Ski Team – Alpine Skiing – 84 (2.21%)
9 – Norwegian Biathlon Team (Men) – Biathlon – 70 (1.84%)
10 – German Eight – Remo – 48 (1,26%)
AIPS members from the following 116 nations participated in the 2020 Champions survey: Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Paraguay, Peru, Poland , Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qata r, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia , Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, United States, Venezuela, Yemen
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