RAF veteran Luke Pollard named 2024 male Athletes' Athlete of the Year
Former Royal Air Force athlete Luke Pollard has been named the 2024 male Athletes' Athlete of the Year following a vote by Britain's Olympic and Paralympic level athletes.
Pollard, who used to serve in the RAF as a supplier, guided visually impaired Dave Ellis to Paralympic gold in the PTVI para triathlon event in Paris last year.
He receives the award alongside Ellis following their successes at the Paralympics, World Championships and European Championships, claiming para triathlon's triple crown in 2024.
The award is in its second year and is presented by the British Elite Athletes Association on behalf of current and former World Class Programme Athletes, who nominated and voted for the winner.
"I didn't really believe [we'd won] to start off with," said 33-year-old Pollard. "We're both pretty quiet athletes but it has been really good to put Dave's story and Dave's journey and our delivery of races out into the public.
"To be recognised by fellow athletes is absolutely unbelievable."
Ellis added: "It is so nice that people have recognised us in this way.
"The shortlist had some great athletes on there and even just to make that nomination list was unbelievable. I'm blown away to actually win the award."
After joining the RAF in 2011, Pollard came through the triathlon ranks and was enrolled on the RAF's Elite Athlete Scheme which enabled him to focus on his athletic career full-time.
He became Ellis's guide in 2019, and after a broken bike chain scuppered their medal hopes at the Paralympics in Tokyo, the pair rebounded to win gold at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022.
The pair now hold three World titles, three European titles, a Commonwealth title and a Paralympic title to their resumes.
"It was definitely the best year of my career by a long shot," added Pollard, who was named RAF Sportsman of the Year in 2021.
"It was probably the best year of my life so far, to be fair. Everything just lined up and we had result after result.
"We had a solid year of training and succeeded in staying clear of illness and injury.
"There was so much riding on that year and the build-up had been so big so to finally achieve something we set out to do many years ago was massive."
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