The Laureus World Sports Awards are an annual award ceremony that honours individuals and teams that have excelled in their chosen sport. On January 15, the 2020 Laureus World Sports Awards nominees were announced. Below is a full breakdown of the nominees in the seven Laureus World Sports Awards categories for 2020. The winners are expected to be revealed at an event on 17 February.
Laureus World Sportsman of the Year
With six Ballon d'Or awards, ten La Liga titles, four Champions League titles, and seven previous Laureus nominations, Lionel Messi may be the most snubbed sportsman in the history of the Laureus. During the 2018-19 La Liga season Messi was the top goal scorer in La Liga with 35 goals and helped guide his club Barcelona to a 26th league title. With the addition of the 2019 Ballon d'Or award, the diminutive Argentinian striker topped what must surely be a Laureus-worthy year.
Other notable nominees in the world’s sportsman of the year category include Eliud Kipchoge, who became the first person in history to run a sub 2-hour marathon in 2019, and one of the most nominated sports stars in Laureus history, Tiger Woods.
Nominees:
Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) – athletics
Lewis Hamilton (United Kingdom) –
motor racing
Lionel Messi (Argentina) – football
Marc Marquez (Spain) – motor cycling
Rafael Nadal (Spain) – tennis
Tiger Woods (USA) – golf
Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year
The sportswoman of the year category is packed full of athletes from the United States. A total of four of the six athletes nominated in the category hail from the US.
Women’s Ballon d'Or winner Megan Rapinoe is a favourite to win the 2020 sportswoman of the year category. The US women’s football captain lead her team to a fourth World Cup title in 2019 and is a leading voice in the push for equal pay with the men’s team. Another strong contender is gymnast Simone Biles. 22-year-old Biles all but swept the World Championships in 2019 winning Gold in five of the six events. Biles also managed to win the all-around individual event at every major competition in 2019, a staggering indication of her dominance last year.
Nominees:
Allyson Felix (USA) – athletics
Megan Rapinoe (USA) – football
Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) – skiing
Naomi Osaka (Japan) –
tennis
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica) – athletics
Simone Biles (USA) – gymnastics
Laureus World Team of the Year
Potentially one of the most competitive categories at the Laureus this year, the team of the year category is packed with worthy winners.
At the top of the list of stellar 2019 team performances has to be Liverpool. The team has just recently gone more than a year without losing a single game in the English Premier League The Reds have remained undefeated for 38 games securing 104 points out of a possible 114, which has seen the club top the 2019-20 EPL table with a dominate lead of 14 points. Other notable nominees include the Toronto Raptors and the US women’s football team. The Raptors became the first Canadian team in history to win the NBA Championship, while the US women’s football team won a fourth World Cup title.
Nominees:
Liverpool FC (United Kingdom) –
football
Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (Germany) – motor racing
South Africa Rugby Team (South Africa) – rugby union
Spain Men’s Basketball Team (Spain) – basketball
Toronto Raptors (Canada) – basketball
United States Women’s Football Team (USA) – football
Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year
Despite being hosts of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, no one expected Japan to make it through to the knockout phase of the competition. The country was placed in Group A along with perennial rugby powerhouses Ireland, Scotland and Samoa. The men from Japan would, however, not be denied on their home ground and went on to top the group winning all four of their group-stage matches. Although the men from Japan would ultimately get hammered by South Africa in the quarter finals, they had earned the respect of the rugby world and are our favourites to win the breakthrough of the year award.
Other notable nominees in the breakthrough of the year category include Bianca Andreescu and Andy Ruiz. Andreescu defeated Serena Williams to win the 2019 US Open at just 19 and Andy Ruiz became the first challenger to defeat Anthony Joshua to win the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles. Ruiz did, however lose his titles to Joshua in a rematch just six months later.
Nominees:
Andy Ruiz (USA) –
boxing
Bianca Andreescu (Canada) – tennis
Coco Gauff (USA) – tennis
Egan Bernal (Columbia) – cycling
Japan’s Men’s Rugby Team (Japan) – rugby union
Regan Smith (USA) – swimming
Laureus World Comeback of the Year
The comeback of the year category of the Laureus is always one of the most inspiring. The nominees of this category have had to fight back through illness and misfortune when everyone around them must have told them it would be easier to quit.
Christian Lealiifano’s journey from a leukaemia diagnosis in 2016 to being the first choice number 10 for Australia at the 2019 Rugby World Cup is easily one of the most inspiring stories of the year. Lealiifano, however is hardly the only inspiring story in this year’s Laureus world comeback category. Sophia Flörsch, for instance returned to race at Macau in 2019 after suffering a horrific crash at the same track a year before. Just 18 at the time, Flörsch escaped the crash with “just” a fractured vertebra and worked hard to get back to the track.
Next to Lealiifano and Flörsch’s stories, the inclusion of Liverpool FC seems a strange one. In the 2017-18 EPL season, Liverpool finished a respectable fourth qualifying for the Champions league. In 2018-19, the club missed out on the title by just one point. This season, Liverpool have been a dominate force within the Premier League currently topping the table by 14 points (as of writing). I’m not sure where in this set of performances the Laureus judges felt Liverpool has displayed one of the most notable comebacks of 2019.
Nominees:
Andy Murray (United Kingdom) – tennis
Christian Lealiifano (Australia) – rugby union
Kawhi Leonard (USA) –
basketball
Liverpool FC (United Kingdom) – football
Nathan Adrian (USA) – swimming
Sophia Flörsch (Germany) – motor racing
Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability
Often relegated to back of the line when award season comes around, the sportsperson of the year with a disability award highlights performances that prove it doesn’t matter what your situation is, you can achieve greatness.
At the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships in London, Alice Tai won a staggering seven gold medals. Following her amazing performance in the pool, Tai won the Athlete of the Year award at the British Swimming Awards becoming the first para-swimmer in the history of the awards to do so.
Other notable nominees in the sportsperson of the year with a disability category include Diede De Groot and Manuela Schär. De Groot had a staggering year winning the 2019 Australian Open, French Open and US Open singles titles and the 2019 Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open doubles titles. Although potentially not as dominate as Tai or De Groot, Schär won both the Boston Wheelchair Marathon and the New York Wheelchair Marathon in 2019.
Nominees:
Alice Tai (United Kingdom) – swimming 1 - 0
Diede De Groot (The Netherlands) – wheelchair tennis 2 - 0
Jetze Plat (The Netherlands) – triathlon 2 - 0
Manuela Schär (Switzerland) – wheelchair racing 1 - 0
Oksana Masters (USA) – cross country skiing 3 - 0
Omara Durand (Cuba) – athletics 2 - 0
Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year
One of the newest additions to the Laureus awards, the world action sportsperson of the year award highlights athletes from a sector of the sports world that has seen significant growth in recent years.
As the youngest nominee at the Laureus this year, it’s easy to overlook Rayssa Leal both literally and as a contender for the 2020 world action sportsperson of the year. However, the 13-year-old put in a staggering year in 2019 placing second at the Street League Skateboarding Championship only losing out to 2-time X Games Gold Medalist, Pamela Rosa who is ten years her senior.
Other notable contenders include Mark McMorris and Chloe Kim who both won Winter X Games Gold medals, and Carissa Moore who won her fourth surfing world championship.
Nominees:
Carissa Moore (USA) – surfing 2 - 0
Chloe Kim (USA) – snowboarding 4 - 1
Italo Ferreira (Brazil) – surfing 1 - 0
Mark McMorris (Canada) – snowboarding 3 - 0
Nyjay Huston (USA) – skateboarding 3 - 0
Rayssa Leal (Brazil) – skateboarding 1 – 0
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