Lauryn Williams Earns Sports Academy’s 2014 Jim Thorpe All-Around Award

Lauryn Williams, an American track and field and bobsled athlete, has been named the United States Sports Academy’s 2014 Jim Thorpe All-Around Award for her outstanding accomplishment of becoming the first American female to medal in both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games.

The Jim Thorpe All-Around Award is presented annually to an individual who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in multiple sport and/or multiple events of the same sport.  This individual should exhibit the qualities of versatility, strength, speed, flexibility, conditioning and training that exemplify superior athletic prowess.

Williams won a gold medal as a member of the United States’ 4×100 meter relay team during the 2012 London Summer Games and also earned a silver medal in the 100-meter dash during the 2004 Athens Summer Games. Alongside Elana Meyers in the two-woman bobsleigh, Williams won a silver medal during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

She is one of only five athletes in the world to earn medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games and the first American woman to achieve the accomplishment.

In 2013, the Jim Thorpe All-Around Award was presented to the British track and field star Jessica Ennis for her performance at the 2012 London Olympic Games where she became a heptathlon gold medalist.

The United States Sports Academy’s Award of Sport program is a long-standing awards program within the Academy, dating back to 1985. The recipients of the awards will be recognized in an awards ceremony in November.

The United States Sports Academy is an independent, nonprofit, accredited, special mission sports university created to serve the nation and the world with programs in instruction, research and service. The role of the Academy is to prepare men and women for careers in the profession of sports. For more information about the Academy, call 251-626-3303 or visit www.ussa.edu.


(ussa.edu)