2011 Photo Of The Year: London Voting Result

NEWS

By Merryn Sherwood | 09 Dec, 2011

It was one of the closest battles in the 2011 ITU Photo of the Year so far in London. After Janos Schmidt’s image of Beijing gold medallists and superstar couple Emma Snowsill and Jan Frodeno rocketed to the front at the start of the week, Delly Carr’s pictures of the women’s field in front of Buckingham Palace and Russia’s Alexander Brukhankov silhouetted against the London sky started to challenge in the votes. On the final day of voting on Friday, with about eight hours until votes closed, Emma and Jan were dead-heated on 20.65% with the women in front of Buckingham Palace, before No.2 just edged ahead of No.5, a total of 21.95 per cent to 20.03. The shot of Brukhankov came in third with 17.01 per cent. But No.2 perhaps also had a secret weapon, with one of the athletes in the shot - South Africa’s Gillian Sanders - tweeting for support earlier in the week.

@gillcurrsanders Gillian Curr Sanders
“I’m in pic 2, please vote for it!Vote for Photo of the Year 2011 London- International Triathlon Union triathlon.org/site/poll/vote… via @ituonline”
@gillcurrsanders Gillian Curr Sanders
“Looks like the pic won,yay!!!Thanks for voting!Photo of the Year 2011 - Week Five: London | Triathlon.org - triathlon.org/site/poll/vote…”

In London we were lucky enough to have not one, but two world class photographers - which means that this week there are two photographer’s choices. Up first is Janos Schmidt, who didn’t realise who was in this prerace shot until after he took it.

“This photo was taken before the women’s race. The atmosphere, the very intimate moment, attracted my attention, at that moment I didn’t event realise that they were Emma and Jan. I just felt their passion and their attraction towards each other in the air. A sort of mixture of love and romance and of course triathlon and competing. As they make eyes each other just before the race, it tells more than words…”

Camera: Nikon D3S
Exposure: 1/640 sec, F3.5
ISO: 800

As he revealed earlier this week, Delly Carr’s pick was the shot of Brukhankov, who he perfectly captured suspended against the London sky.

“Russian athlete Alexander Brukhankov is one of the most physically intimidating athletes on the curcuit. His sheer size and grimace gives him a gargantuan presence on the start swim pontoon. Yet the light of the sun gave the image a touch of purity and softness, a contrast to the bulk of Alexander, and therefore giving an amazing visual balance to the image.

Camera: Nikon D3S
Exposure: 1/5000 sec, F5.6
ISO: 200

But back to this year’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 the two-for-one Lausanne round, with the best images from both the ITU Elite Sprint Triathlon World Championships and Team Triathlon World Championships up for scrutiny, and you can have your say again.