Published July 18, 2014 01:54PM
Jamie Whitmore Wins An ESPY
Jamie Whitmore won the ESPY for Best Female Athlete with a Disability at Wednesday night’s ESPY Awards.
XTERRA Hall-of-Famer, world champ, cancer survivor, para-cycling rock star, and mom-of-the-century Jamie Whitmore won the ESPY for Best Female Athlete with a Disability at Wednesday night’s star-studded ceremonies at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, Calif.
See the announcement from XTERRA below:
“It was AMAZING! I was surrounded by awesome athletes and movie stars, and there are two things I love in life: sports and TV. I couldn’t ask for more. The highlight of my trip besides winning the ESPY was meeting a fellow Sarcoma survivor Mark Herzlich of the NY Giants,” said Whitmore, who has been cancer-free for six years now. “Thanks to the XTERRA Tribe for all the support. I couldn’t have won without your help!”
The prestigious ESPY Award (short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) is presented annually by ESPN to recognize individual and team athletic achievements and other sports-related performances.
Whitmore was one of five women in the “Best Female Athlete with a Disability” category, joining triathlete Minda Dentler, sit-skier Oksana Masters, wheelchair racer Tatyana McFadden, and alpine monoskier Laurie Stephens.
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At the 2014 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships Whitmore won gold medals in the time trial and pursuit events with world-record times. On the road, she took first place in the road race 2014 UCI World Cup in Italy. In 2013, she was undefeated in both the Road World Cup series and the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships.
As an XTERRA racer Whitmore is still the winningest female elite of all-time having collected 37 majors in a dozen different countries including the World Championship in 2004 before being diagnosed with cancer in 2008. After several surgeries, including one to remove her entire left gluteus muscle she was told she’d likely never ride or run again. It was just the kind of challenge Whitmore thrives on and she was back crushing the competition in all kinds of races shortly thereafter.
Whitmore said one of the highlights of the evening was the speech delivered by ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, who is fighting cancer.
“I cried during his speech, I could relate to everything he said.”
The ceremonies helped raise $6.5 million for cancer research.