Lausanne: Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka and Polish striker Robert Lewandowski have been named the AIPS Best Athletes of 2020.
Bayern Munich won the AIPS Best Team of 2020 after breaking a plethora of records en route to winning five trophies. This is the result of a poll by the International Sport Press Association (AIPS), where a panel of 422 journalists from 116 countries voted for the Champions of 2020.
It is the first time that Lewandowski and Osaka are winning the prestigious accolade which attracts votes from a vast network of professionals across the world annually.
Bayern Munich goal machine Lewandowski garnered 620 points, enough to see off British seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton on 546 points and Spanish 20-time tennis Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal in third with 378 points.
Lewandowski, 32-year-old, born in Warsaw, Poland, has been in blistering form over the last year, contributing a whopping 55 goals in 47 games to Bayern Munich’s exceptional 2019/20 treble triumph.
He won the German league and cup double as well as the Champions League with Bayern and finished as top scorer in all three competitions – top scorer for the third time in a row in the Bundesliga and fourth successive year 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.
Three-time Grand Slam champion Osaka topped the AIPS poll for Best Female Athlete with 526 points ahead of Venezuelan triple jump world indoor record-holder Yulimar Rojas (331 points) and American tennis legend Serena Williams, who won her 73rd WTA title at the 2020 ASB Classic, in third with 327 points.
Osaka, 23-year-old, born in Chūō-ku, Japan, to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, moved with her family to New York when she was three. She first grabbed the headlines in 2016 at the age of 19, when she won the
Women’s Tour Association (WTA) Newcomer of the Year award after reaching her first WTA final and rising to a career-high ranking of No. 40.
Her US Open championship victory surely qualifies as one of the highlights of the 2020 tennis season not just for her impressive athleticism but also for her extraordinary activism.
Osaka highlighted racial and social injustice throughout her run at the tournament, where she wore seven black masks bearing the names of different victims, one for each round.
Bayern Munich, six-time UEFA Champions League winners, were dominant in the Best Team poll, receiving a total of 1317 points, followed by reigning Premier League champions Liverpool with 753 points, while 2020 NBA champions Los Angeles Lakers had to settle for third place with 658 points.
