The World’s Fastest Man, Usain Bolt, ran away with another honor after being selected as the Hickok Belt™ Award winner for August 2012. Voting was conducted by a select panel of members of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association (NSSA). Bolt was selected after a record-breaking performance at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, where he became the first man to win two consecutive gold medals in the 100 and 200-meter dashes. He also broke a world record in the 200-meter dash with a time of 19.32 seconds. In addition, Bolt won a third gold medal after anchoring the men’s 4X100-meter relay with a world record time of 36.84 seconds.
Other finalist for the month of August in order of how the NSSA voters ranked them included: Allyson Felix (track & field), Felix Hernandez (baseball), Kevin Durant (basketball), Rory McElroy (golf), Alex Morgan (soccer), Mike Trout (baseball), Giancarlo Stanton (baseball), Craig Kimbrel (baseball) and So Yeon Ryu (golf).
As a monthly recipient, Bolt becomes the eighth of twelve finalists for the overall annual award, joining previous monthly award winners including Eli Manning, Jeremy Lin, Lindsey Vonn, Bubba Watson, Josh Hamilton and LeBron James and Serena Williams. Winners as selected by the NSSA will be announced each month throughout 2012. The overall winner will then be announced in early 2013.
