Robert Allard Selected Person of the Year for Protecting Young Swimmers from Pedophile Swim Coaches

His legacy in the sport will be one that won’t be counted until years from now when the dust has settled.

A leading online swimming publication, SwimSwam, has named childhood sex abuse attorney Robert Allard as its 2012 Swammy Awards: Person of the Year for his work in protecting young swimmers from pedophile swim coaches. The publication points to the biggest story in swimming in 2012, the explosion of sexual abuse cases in the sport, and Allard's long-time role in bringing the problem of coaches sexually molesting underage swimmers to the forefront.

Quotes from SwimSwam include:

"Allard has been in the spotlight in the realm of swimming sexual abuse cases as long as anybody, reaching back to when this story originally exploded in 2010 and the now-infamous 20/20 special. This year, he has represented the accusers in the cases of the two biggest names (Rick Curl & Mark Schubert) to ever be pulled into this scandal."

"Allard, having been involved in so many lawsuits and for so long, has about as much knowledge about the inner-workings of USA Swimming at the organization level as anyone outside of the walls of Colorado Springs."

"Allard is holding feet to the fire. He has time and time again opened the conversation about what needs to change and where the problems are in detecting, fighting, and preventing these sexual abuse cases."

Allard was selected over Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and Missy Franklin.