Canada Soccer’s Kadeisha Buchanan, Alphonso Davies and
\u200bChristine Sinclair have all been recognised as Canadian Athletes of the Year in
\u200b2020. Davies won the Lou Marsh Memorial Trophy as Canada’s Outstanding Athlete
\u200bof the Year, the Lionel Conacher Award as The Canadian Press Male Athlete of
\u200bthe Year and the Postmedia Canadian Male Athlete of the Year Award; Buchanan
\u200bwon the Postmedia Canadian Female Athlete of the Year Award; and Sinclair won
\u200bthe Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as The Canadian Press Female Athlete of the Year.
This marks the third time since 2012 that soccer players
\u200bhave been named Canadian Athletes of the Year, albeit the first time that both
\u200bmen and women have been recognised in the same year. Since the inception of The
\u200bCanadian Press awards in 1932, only athletics (1936), golf (2000), hockey
\u200b(2007) and tennis (2013, 2014) have previously been recognised with male and
\u200bfemale winners in the same year.
“We are tremendously proud of Canada Soccer’s National Team
\u200bstars Kadeisha Buchanan, Alphonso Davies and Christine Sinclair for being
\u200brecognized as Athletes of the Year across all three major Canadian athlete
\u200bawards in 2020,” said Dr. Nick Bontis, Canada Soccer President. “They are truly
\u200bdeserving of the recognition they have received from both the national and
\u200bglobal communities for their achievements with our National Teams and their
\u200brespective professional clubs. For both our sport and our country, they are all
\u200ba great inspiration to young Canadians chasing their dreams.”
In early December, Davies and former NFL star Laurent
\u200bDuvernay-Tardif were named co-winners of the 2020 Lou Marsh Memorial Trophy. In
\u200blate December, Davies picked up both the Lionel Conacher Award for the first
\u200btime and the Postmedia award for the second time. In between those three
\u200bhonours, he became the first Canadian named to the FIFA FIFPro Men’s World11 at
\u200bThe Best FIFA Football Awards.
Davies, a two-time winner of Canada Soccer’s Canadian Player of the Year Award, won five club trophies in 2020 with world-renowned FC Bayern München including his first UEFA Champions League title. He won the Bundesliga Rookie of the Season, was named to the UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season, and was the runner up for UEFA Champions League Defender of the Year.
Buchanan won the Postmedia Canadian Female Athlete of the
\u200bYear award after she was previously a runner up in both 2015 and 2016. Buchanan
\u200bwas also a top-5 finalist for the Lou Marsh Memorial Trophy in 2020 and a
\u200bsecond-time runner up for the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award (2015 and 2020).
A three-time winner of Canada Soccer’s Canadian Player of the Year Award, she helped Canada qualify for the Olympic Games and she won three trophies with her club Olympique Lyonnais, including her fourth UEFA Women’s Champions League title. She was also named to the Best XI at the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Olympic Qualifying Championship and was a year-end nominee for the UEFA Team of the Year and the FIFA FIFPro Women’s World11.
Sinclair won the Bobbie
\u200bRosenfeld Award as The Canadian Press Female Athlete of the Year for the second
\u200btime in 2020. She is the first team-sport athlete to win the award twice and
\u200bthe first athlete from a professional sport club to win the award. She also set
\u200ba record for the longest span of years as a top-5 finalist by a team-sport
\u200bathlete for The Canadian Press Athlete of the Year awards (19 years from 2002
\u200bto 2020, which are two years longer than Mario Lemieux and four years longer
\u200bthan Wayne Gretzky in their eras as top-5 finalists).
In 2020, Sinclair became the world’s all-time international
\u200bgoalscoring record holder after she scored her 185thgoal for Canada
\u200bSoccer’s Women’s National Team. A 14-time winner of the Canadian Player of the
\u200bYear Award, she again qualified Canada for the Olympic Games in 2020 while also
\u200bwinning the NWSL Community Shield with Portland Thorns FC. The top scorer in
\u200bthe 2020 NWSL Fall Series, she now has more than 300 goals at the club and
\u200binternational levels, including her record 186 international “A” goals for
\u200bCanada.