The Laureus World Sports Awards 2012 are now just four weeks away…
…and we want to know who you think deserves to be victorious on the night.
Of course, it’s not an easy task to pick the world’s best sportsperson when the Nominees don’t even play the same game. So, to make it as easy as possible, you will find all the hopefuls below listed with their greatest achievements and statistics from 2011.
First up in the series is the tightly contested Laureus World Sportsman of the Year category:
USAIN BOLT
Usain Bolt
- 200 metres: gold (Daegu World Athletics Championship)
- 4x100m relay: gold (Daegu with Jamaica relay team)
DIRK NOWITZKI
Dirk Nowitzki
- Named in 2011 NBA All-Star Game (10th appearence)
- Named 2011 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player
- Averaged 27.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists in 21 games in playoffs.
CADEL EVANS
Cadel Evans
- Tour de France: Winner
- Tour de Romandie: Winner
- Tirreno–Adriatico: Winner
LIONEL MESSI
Lionel Messi
- Helped Barcelona to win five trophies
- Scored the crucial goal in Champions League Final against Manchester United
- Won the Golden Ball at FIFA Club World Cup (and was Man of the Match in the final)
- Ballon d’Or winner 2011 (his third win)
- From 70 games in 2011: Scored 59 goals and 35 completed assists
NOVAK DJOKOVIC
Novak Djokovic
- Finished 2011 as world No 1
- Ten tournament wins (including three Grand Slams and five masters 1000 series events)
- 70 wins from 76 matches
- Season prize money a record $12,619,803
SEBASTIAN VETTEL
Sebastian Vettel
- 2011 Formula 1 World Champion
- 11 race wins
- 17 podium finishes
- Record number of Championship points in a season (392)
- Record number of pole positions in a season (15)
So, there are all the vital statistics from the most incredible sportsmen of the past year!
Let us know who you think has the most impressive tally of achievements in the box below, or let us know on Twitter by following @LaureusSport.
Come back soon for the next in the head-to-head series: the sportswomen Nominees…
With a death toll in excess of 184,000, it’s almost impossible to picture the individual men, women and children who perished in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.
Such numbers remain beyond our understanding; the brutality of such destruction surely unimaginable had it never actually come to pass.
In Sri Lanka alone, 35,322 were killed by the tsunami following a powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean.
For young Sri Lankan Pulina Tharanga, however, it’s all too easy for him to put a face to individuals who lost their lives through this disaster.
He was one of countless children who lost a parent, in Pulina’s case his mother, because of the disaster.
And just months later tragedy struck once again when his father died in a boating accident.
He, along with his brother and sister, were left orphaned.
Pulina and his siblings at least had a loving grandparent to take care of them at that point, but nothing can be taken away from the grief and pain that the three children were left suffering, and how catastrophically their lives had been turned upside down in such a short time.
Pulina Tharanga at the crease
Pulina was just 11 years old when the disaster struck.
Like many young boys from Sri Lanka, cricket had always been a passion for Pulina as he grew up. Now it would come to be source of strength as well.
And just a year after the tsunami struck, Pulina took this passion for cricket to the Laureus-supported Foundation of Goodness project in Seenigama, Sri Lanka.
Since then he has achieved remarkable things through cricket, all from a period of such terrible personal tragedy.
It all started when Pulina moved to play for the Tamil Union Cricket Club in early 2011 having been encouraged by Kushil Gunasekera, a project leader at the Foundation of Goodness.
By all accounts he performed excellently, the decision to move was already seen as a success. But there was even greater success to come.
During his time playing at Tamil Union he was eventually watched by selectors for the Sri Lankan under-19 squad.
They were impressed.
And it wasn’t long before he was named in the Sri Lankan squad for the under-19 world cup and chosen to go on tour to India, around Sri Lanka, Australia and the West Indies in a Quadrangular tournament that took place later on in 2011.
Now aged 18, Pulina will naturally be aiming to further his cricket career, particularly for his national side.
Nevertheless, the remarkable goals he has already achieved truly stand as testament to his commitment and passion, and also to the unique power of sport to help young people like Pulina recover from tragedy and hardship.
Back at the 2005 Laureus World Sports Award, it was the inspiring Alessandro Zanardi’s remarkable courage that won him the Comeback of the Year Award.
This was following his return to motor racing having lost both his legs in a horrific crash just four years earlier.
Zanardi receives his award from Teri Hatcher
His 2001 accident in the European Memorial CART race in Lausitz, Germany was one of the worst ever seen.
His car spun coming out of the pits and was hit by another coming down the straight at 200mph. The impact was so great that his vehicle was ripped in two.
Demonstrating incredible commitment and passion, Zanardi returned to motor racing in October 2003 and went on to complete a full season in the European Touring Car championship in 2004.
On his return, he drove a specially adapted car in which the throttle was mounted on the upper part of the steering wheel, the brake pedal was shaped to prevent the driver’s artificial limb from losing grip, whilst the clutch actuated through a button on the gear lever.
Though his return to his sport in this way made him worthy of recognition by the Laureus Academy, Zanardi’s journey following this has gone on to show how inspirational a figure he truly is.
Though he retired from motor racing in 2009, it certainly wasn’t because he was finished with sport altogether.
That’s because he would now focus on the new sport he had adopted since 2007: hand cycling.
From the very start, success came remarkably quickly.
In 2007 he achieved 4th place in the New York City Marathon in the handcycle division after only four weeks of training.
By the end of 2011, however, Zanardi had finally won the New York Marathon at his fourth attempt. He added this first place finish to previous victories at the Venice Marathon in 2009 and the Rome Marathon in 2010.
Perhaps his most exciting achievement of the past year, however, has been his qualifying to race for the Italian team at the London 2012 Paralympics.
Zanardi may be approaching 46 by the time the Games come around later this year, but considering his achievements so far, it’s a safe bet he will be chasing nothing but gold.
