Olympic gold medalists claimed the top three spots in both the male and female categories in the final vote tally for the United States Sports Academy’s Athlete of the Year, presented by NBCSports.com and USAToday.com.

Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who won a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, finished first to win the Male Athlete of the Year Award. In the female category, Nastia Liukin, the Russian native from Parker, Texas, who won the all-around gold medal in gymnastics at Beijing, finished first after a world-wide online vote was tallied on a ballot hosted on the Academy website and linked to USAToday.com and NBCSports.com.

Phelps was trailed by Roger Federer of Switzerland, who won the gold medal in men’s doubles tennis in Beijing as well as the U.S. Open singles championship. Third place in the men’s division went to Usain Bolt of Jamaica, who won three gold medals with world-record breaking performances in the 100 meter dash, 200 meters and 4 x 100 meter relay.

Second to Liukin was Guo Jinjing, a diver from China who won two gold medals in Beijing.

American tennis star Serena Williams, who won a gold medal in women’s doubles in Beijing, placed third.

Phelps set Olympic records for most career gold medals (14) and most in one Olympiad (8), setting seven world record times in the process. He won the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:03.84, as well as the 200 individual medley (1:54.23), 100 butterfly (50.58), 200 freestyle (1:42.96), 200 butterfly (1:52.03), 4 x 200 freestyle relay (6:58.56), 4 x 100 relay (3:08.24) and 4 x 100 medley relay (3:29.34).

After fighting off illness as well as fierce competition from Rafael Nadal for most of the year, Federer won his fifth straight U.S. Open singles title (13th career Grand Slam tournament win) and won the Olympic gold medal in doubles in Beijing, where he and Stanislas Wawrinka upset the world’s No. 2 tandem, Bob and Mike Bryan, in the finals.

Bolt set world records and won Olympic gold medals in three events. He set the world record in the 100-meter dash at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York (9.72 seconds) then broke it again at the Olympics in Beijing (9.69). Bolt then broke the 200-meter world record (19.30) in Beijing and helped his country’s 4 x 100-meter relay team break the world record as well (37.10).

Liukin made the All-Around gold in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games her fifth medal in Beijing, while taking home individual silver medals in the balance beam and uneven bars and a bronze medal in the floor exercise, as well as a team silver medal. She also has four world championship gold medals on her resume.

Jingjing, one of China’s most famous athletes, won Olympic Gold in the 3-meter springboard with a cumulative score of 415.35, and then teamed up with Wu Minxia to win the 3-meter synchronized springboard with a cumulative score of 343.5. She has seven world championships, three Olympic gold and three Olympic silver medals in her career, dating back to 2000.

Williams won her third U.S. Open singles title and second Olympic gold medal in doubles. The U.S. Open was her ninth career Grand Slam tournament singles championship. She and her sister, Venus, won their seventh Grand Slam tournament title in doubles at Wimbledon, giving Serena 18 titles in Grand Slam events.

In all, six of the 12 male and eight of the 12 female athletes who were nominated for Athlete of the Year were Olympic competitors in Beijing with all 12 winning gold medals, making the 2008 Athlete of the Year selection process a celebration of the success of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

Last year, Brett Favre and Justine Henin were chosen as hundreds of thousands voted online.

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