Speedskater Bonnie Blair Wins Sullivan Award on 4th Chance

Bonnie Blair is not fond of taking phone calls at 3:45 a.m. She wouldn’t have missed this one for the world.

On Monday night, the speedskater from Champaign, Ill., won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete last year. But it was Tuesday morning at Blair’s end of the line in Inzell, Germany, where she is training for this weekend’s World Cup in Holland.

Blair, 28, winner of two gold medals in the Olympics last year at Albertville, France, got the news from her sister, Angela.

“You’re a winner, Kid,” Angela told her.

“You’re kidding,” Blair said. “Unbelievable!”

Blair, who trains and lives in a Milwaukee suburb, won in her fourth time as a finalist. She is the third Winter Olympic athlete to win in the award’s 63-year history. The others were figure skater Dick Button (1949) and speedskater Eric Heiden (1980).

The finalists included swimmers Mike Barrowman, Summer Sanders and Pablo Morales, wrestler Bruce Baumgartner, figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, sprinter Gail Devers, boxer Oscar De La Hoya, diver Mark Lenzi and quarter-miler Kevin Young.