Nick Kyrgios and Lydia Lassila have missed out on being named the Australian athlete who most inspired the nation in the past 12 months, after Sally Pearson took the coveted ‘Don’ award at the Sports Hall of Fame gala dinner event.
Tennis star Kyrgios and Sochi aerials bronze medalist, Lydia Lassila (nee Ierodiaconou) were two of six finalists for the award, that included Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo, marathon man Michael Shelly and cricketer Mitchell Johnson.
Pearson took out the prize for successfully defending her Commonwealth Games 100 metres hurdles title in Glasgow amid stiff competition.
“To be honest, this is a huge surprise I really didn’t expect this tonight,” Sally Pearson said during the awards night on Thursday.
“After the year that I had trying to get back in seven weeks to make the Commonwealth Games after tearing my hamstring, that was hard enough, so I did not expect it this year,” Pearson said.
Also at the awards was boxing great Stan ‘The Man’ Longinidis, who will now become a mentor to a young judo hopeful, Jake Bensted.
Mr Bensted is one of five young athletes under 21 to be named recipients of the 2015 Scholarship and Mentoring Program.
Tennis great John Newcombe AO OBE was elevated to Legend status.
A former world number one tennis player, Newcombe won seven Grand Slam singles titles, as one of the last of the Australians to dominate international tennis in the late 1960s and ’70s.