Daniel Taylor picked up two of the seven prizes won by the Guardian at the Sports Journalists’ Association awards on Monday night, being named the football journalist of the year and the sports writer of the year.
The Guardian’s chief football writer won the football journalist award for a body of work which included his revelatory coverage of the Eni Aluko affair and an interview with Rhian Brewster in which the Liverpool player revealed he had experienced racial abuse five times in the previous seven months. The judges at the awards presentation in London said Taylor’s “pieces were powerful and had a major impact on football in this country”.
Martha Kelner and Sean Ingle won the scoop of the year award for revealing Chris Froome’s failed drug test. The judges said it was “one of the stories the rest of the media were scrambling to catch up with. It was unearthed from a quagmire of confidentiality.”
Ingle joined Taylor as a double winner, being also named the specialist correspondent of the year, with the judges saying he “captured huge moments and took the reader there with descriptive, emotional writing”, adding: “The writer’s knowledge and understanding of athletics shone through.”
Donald McRae took the sports feature writer of the year accolade. “As a profile writer he is without peer,” the judges said. His work shows “a rare sensitivity as well as writing style across areas as diverse as MMA, being gay in sport and mental health issues”. He is “an incredibly warm and empathetic interviewer who writes with verve and bite”.
The Guardian won the sports newspaper of the year award and was also named the best website of the year. The site was described as “the gold standard in online coverage of sport”.
The citation added: “It is always fresh and offers an unrivalled mix of news, comment video and exclusive content. It is the go-to website for sports lovers.”
James Dart, the Guardian sport digital editor, dedicated the award to Dan Lucas, the cricket and rugby writer who died last year aged 31.
Kelner was also highly commended in the sports news reporter category and David Conn likewise in the investigative sports reporter section.