Short track speed skating dual World Cup winner, Tatiana Borodulina, has capped off a record-breaking year by being named the Australian Ice Racing Athlete of the Year, as the country’s four ice sport organisations gathered in Sydney to recognize the year’s performances.

Borodulina was one of four people to collect Athlete of the Year awards, with Sydney skeleton athlete Emma Lincoln-Smith given that honour by the Australian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association, skater Cheltzie Lee winning the Ice Skating Australia Athlete of the Year award and Sean Hall named Athlete of the Year by the Australian Curling Federation.

Borodulina, 25, won two 500m World Cup races in Dresden, Germany, in February and also raced to a bronze medal in Beijing on her way to a number three world ranking in 500m.

The 25-year-old Brisbane skater is the first Australian to win a short track World Cup event.

Lincoln-Smith finished in fifth place at the World Skeleton Championships in Lake Placid in February, Australia's best result in a sliding sport at world title level and a personal best for the 23-year-old slider at any level of competition.

Most significantly, the Sydney-based AIS athlete finished in front of the reigning World Cup champion Katie Uhlaender of the US, the 2006 and 2007 World Champion Melissa Hollingsworth of Canada and the Torino 2006 Olympic champion Maya Pedersen of Switzerland.

Cheltzie Lee made a major impression on figure skating experts this year when she finished in 13th place at the ISU Four Continents Championships in Vancouver in February.

Skating in her first senior competition at domestic or international level, the OWI scholarship holder rose to the occasion, delivering individual program personal bests and a PB total score of 123.88 points.

Other awards conferred included Junior Athlete of the Year, Coach of the Year and Outstanding Achievement of the Year. The full list of awards is below.

Earlier in the day these athletes participated in an AOC Team Processing Session for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. All potential team members across all Winter sports were processed in Sydney yesterday or the final session in Melbourne next Thursday.

Processing involves briefings, formal and competition uniform fittings, data collection for accreditation and team media information plus video interviews with olympics.com.au and new Olympic Broadcaster the Nine Network.

Australian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association
Junior Athlete of the Year: No award
Coach of the Year: Terry Holland
Outstanding Achievement award: Chris Spring
Athlete of the Year: Emma Lincoln-Smith

Australian Curling Federation
Junior Athlete of the Year: Maddie Wilson
Coach of the Year: Lyn Gill
Outstanding Achievement award: Hugh Millikin
Athlete of the Year: Sean Hall

Australian Ice Racing
Junior Athlete of the Year: Pierre Boda
Coach of the Year: Ann Zhang
Outstanding Achievement award: Lachlan Hay
Athlete of the Year: Tatiana Borodulina

Ice Skating Australia
Junior Athlete of the Year: Matthew Precious
Coach of the Year: Kylie Fennell
Outstanding Achievement award: Danielle O’Brien and Greg Merriman
Athlete of the Year: Cheltzie Lee

OWI and AOC