Federica Pellegrini is the AIPS Europe 2011 Female Athlete of the Year

The International Sports Press Association AIPS announced Monday that Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic and Italy’s champion swimmer Federica Pellegrini have won the AIPS Europe 2011 Athletes of the Year Awards. Pellegrini won the women’s Evgen Bergant Trophy with a convincing 71 votes ahead of Czech tennis player Petra Kvitova (50 votes) and Norways ski ace Marit Bjørgen (43 votes), and is the first European swimmer to name European athlete of the year, since Netherland’s Inge de Bruijn and Pieter van der Hoogenband took both awards back in 2000. Via fairplayinternational.org

Picture courtesy of Simona Dalla Valle, cc by-nc-nd 2.0