2011 Photo Of The Year: Beijing Voting Result

NEWS

By Merryn Sherwood | 23 Dec, 2011

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The ITU Photo of the Year is a competition decided by you, the fans, but this week the response was so big it deserves a round of applause. And it was all down to two extremely popular shots, the image of Brazil’s Eduardo Lass exiting the water in the junior men’s race, and Morocco’s Mohamed Lahna crossing the finish line in his Paratriathlon world championship race.

Early on in the week, Lahna was clearly ahead - but that was before the Brazilians chimed in, helped along by Lass himself who tweeted the poll. For a day Lass was ahead, before the picture of Lahna moved ahead in the final day of voting to win with 40.65 per cent of the vote. Image No.2 finished with 38.07 per cent. It’s certainly fitting in what was a huge year for Paratriathlon, this world titles were the first where athletes had the goal of competing at the Paralympics - after the sport was officially accepted into the programme for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Just a few weeks ago, the ITU officially became a member of the IPC. And your comments reflected just how inspiring Paratriathlon can be.

Humpty Wong, “Pix 5 shows the most touching moment and the philosophy of Triathlon.”
Smom Mifdal, “They’re all Beautiful pictures! However #5 is the richest & the most powerful of all. A true wink @ the moment where David defeated Goliath! Best photo is n°5!”
Essaid Youssef, “Bonne continuation c’est un exemple de persévérance et de courage. Je suis fière de toi vive le Maroc et chapeau pour Mohammed Lahna.”
Seffar Hicham, “What does not kill you make you stronger.”

Now onto this week’s photographer’s choices, both Delly Carr and Janos Schmidt were on deck, which means that there are two to view. Delly’s pick was the faded outline of the Beijing 2008, for the memories it evoked of those epic Olympic Games.

“It was three years ago when China put on an amazing Triathlon spectacle during the Olympic Games. Those fortunate to be there haven’t forgotten. The memories will always last forever, unlike the physical paint that slowly fades to nothingness.

Camera: Nikon D3S
Exposure: 1/1600 sec, F2.8

Janos has followed up on Delly’s pic from last week, and named his favourite start image for 2011.

“I know Delly has chosen his swim start photo as his favourite one at last week’s competition. This is my version of the same moment, which was shot in Beijing – no sunshine, no impressive colors, but beautiful mountains covered by fog and a traditional Chinese building in the background.”

Camera: Nikon D3S
Exposure: 1/800 sec, F3.5
ISO: 800

But back to this week’s results, did you agree? See all the nominees here. Let us know your thoughts below. Check back on triathlon.org next week when we unveil the finalists for Yokohama and you can have your say again.