Torri Huske and Bobby Finke won USA Swimming’s Athlete of the Year and Race of the Year honors at its annual Golden Goggle Awards on Saturday.
Huske, who earned five Paris Olympic medals, including 100m butterfly gold, was named Female Athlete of the Year for the first time.
Huske, a Stanford redshirt junior, was one of five nominees along with fellow individual Paris Olympic champions Katie Ledecky (800m and 1500m freestyles) and Kate Douglass (200m breaststroke), as well as Gretchen Walsh and Regan Smith, who each broke a long-course world record and won Olympic medals this year.
Finke, who also won Male Athlete of the Year in 2022, was one of three men’s nominees along with Ryan Murphy and Nic Fink, who each won an individual medal and relay gold in Paris.
Finke also won Male Race of the Year for his Olympic 1500m free title. Huske won Female Race of the Year for her Olympic 100m fly.
Walsh won the Breakout Performer award after breaking her first long-course world record, making her first Olympic team and winning two golds and two silvers in Paris.
Katie Grimes was Open-Water Swimmer of the Year after recording the best U.S. finish in the 10km in Paris of 15th. She also took 400m individual medley silver in the pool.
The Perseverance Award went to Paige Madden, who was on the brink of retirement in 2023, then won two Olympic medals in 2024. In 2022, Madden shared that she had been dealing with an autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s disease, for the last decade.
Todd DeSorbo of the University of Virginia won Coach of the Year for the first time. DeSorbo coaches Douglass and Walsh.
The next significant swim meet is the U.S. Open from Dec. 4-7 in Greensboro, North Carolina, followed by the world short-course championships from Dec. 10-15 in Budapest.
