Barty party addition
WORLD No.1 women’s tennis star Ash Barty and champion Olympic swimmer Emma McKeon have capped off remarkable years by taking out this year’s The Courier Mail/Channel 7 Queensland Sport Star of the Year Award.
It’s the first time in the Queensland Sport Awards history that two athletes have been named joint winners of the top gong and it comes as female athletes reigned supreme, taking out four of the five major awards at Thursday’s ceremony at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The selection panel could not split Barty and McKeon for the top individual award because both reached the upper echelons in their respective sporting fields.
Barty defeated Karolina Pilskova at Wimbledon in July this year to become the first Australian woman to win the title since Evonne Goolagong Crawley in 1980.
McKeon became a household name following her record-equalling, multigold medal-winning effort at the Tokyo Olympics.
Australian swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan took out the Junior Sport Star of the Year award, while the Olympic gold medal-winning women’s 4x100m freestyle
team took out the XXXX Queensland Sport Team of the Year.
Paralympian and Afghanistan veteran Curtis McGrath was also awarded the Queensland Sport Athlete with a Disability award for his two gold medals in Tokyo this year.
Twelve athletes were nominated for the top gong following a string of elite performances.
Among the other contenders were Australian Test cricketer Marnus Labuschagne, 18-year-old motocross rider Jett Lawrence, freestyle BMX rider Logan Martin, who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, inaugural skate Olympic gold medal winner Keegan Palmer, Tokyo gold medal-winning breaststroker Zac Stubblety-Cook and dual gold medal winner in freestyle swimming, Ariarne Titmus.