"What does a female athlete have to do to be nominated" - Olympic champion Katie Moon on Myles Garrett winning in Greater Cleveland Sports Awards

American pole vaulter Katie Moon has expressed her frustration over female athletes not being nominated in the athlete of the year category at the Greater Cleveland Sports Awards. All three nominees for the award were male athletes, which did not sit right with Moon - an Olympic and two-time world champion.

Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett was adjudged as the athlete of the year. The other two nominees were Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard Donovan Mitchell and Cleveland Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor.

Taking to X (formerly known as Twitter), Moon lauded Garrett as "absolutely phenomenal," but questioned the absence of female athletes from the category.

"What does a female athlete have to do to be nominated for athlete of the year," Moon wrote.

Moon said that she doesn't want to downplay Garrett, saying "he's amazing" and deserved to "win all the awards." However, she questioned the lack of female nominees in the category as there wasn't a separate category for women.

"My question was simply about a nomination for a woman as there's no women category like the other groups," Moon wrote.

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Katie Moon says a "Pro" woman hasn't been recognized

Reacting to Katie Moon's post, a user said that the award was only for "local professional athletes." While Moon acknowledged that the Cleveland Sports Commission recognizes local professional athletes, she said that they have never recognized a "pro" woman.

"I appreciate that, and I understand that logic, but they've never recognized a "pro" woman. It doesn’t have to be me, and it doesn’t have to be in place of the men, but I’d like to see that changed as there have been some pretty phenomenal female athletes and will be to come," she tweeted.

Another user assumed that the Olympics exclusively featured amateur athletes. In reply, Katie Moon pointed out that the global sporting event started that way, but Olympic athletes are not amateurs anymore.

"While it started that way, we (Olympic athletes) are not amateurs anymore and haven't been for year!"

The 32-year-old American athlete was further dismayed at the fact that despite Olympic track and field athletes being professionals for nearly 40 years, they still fall under the amateur category.

Moon said that it is frustrating that there is a female category for the other AOTY awards, like high school and university, but not for professionals.

"Once they took away the 'Amateur' AOTY (even though we're pro) pro women had no recognition at this event. Just simply wondering why," she wrote in another tweet.