The Award for Laureus Comeback of the Year is always a particularly special one.
Although Comeback Nominees are of course chosen for their sporting achievements just like the Sportsman and Sportswoman hopefuls, another very important factor is also taken into account.
And that factor is the courage, commitment and, as is particularly the case this year, the bravery that it took for these sportspeople to get back to the top of their game once again.
Because of that, all the Nominees this year truly deserve recognition for their achievements, but whose do you think are the most inspiring and worthy of success on Awards night?
Here are all the hopeful Nominees and a brief insight into the remarkable lengths they went to in the pursuit of finding sporting success once again…
ERIC ABIDAL
Eric Abidal
Eric Abidal’s story from the past year has to be one of the most remarkable in the history of football.
On March 15 last year he announced that a tumour had been found on his liver. He underwent surgery to have it removed two days later.
Eric’s turnaround remains an inspiring feat of bravery and commitment to sport. It was just two months later that the Barcelona defender returned to the game playing against Manchester United in the Champions League final. In a moving tribute he was handed the captain’s armband for the match. On Barcelona’s victory, he was the first to receive the trophy in recognition of his fantastic return after illness.
DARREN CLARKE
Darren Clarke
Darren Clarke’s victory in the Open Championship at the age of 42 was one of the most heart-warming sporting moments of the year.
It was his 20th attempt to win The Open, his home Major Championship, and came at the end of very difficult time for him following the death of his wife Heather in 2006, which meant his priority became looking after his two sons.
He dedicated his Open victory at Royal St George’s to his sons and his late wife. He said: “In terms of what’s going through my heart, there’s obviously somebody who is watching from up above and I know she’d be very proud of me. It’s been a long journey to get here.”
CRUSADERS
Crusaders
The Crusaders finished runners-up to the Queensland Reds in the Super 15 rugby competition, but nothing can be taken away from the passion and commitment it took for the team to reach even that stage.
The team was badly affected by the devastating Christchurch earthquake of February 2011. 181 people were killed in the disaster and the widespread destruction included their very own stadium.
It meant they had to travel over 100,000 km in 2011 alone just to play their rugby.
SERGIO GARCIA
Sergio Garcia
For professional sportspeople, one of the hardest things to do is simply find a way back to top-flight success after a long period of disappointment.
Sergio Garcia, however, who won the Laureus Breakthrough of the Year at the first Awards in 2000, did just that when he once again emerged in 2011 as a powerful force in golf.
After a three year stretch without a win, Garcia won two successive tournaments in 2011; the first at the Castello Masters, followed just a week later by victory at the Andalucia Masters.
In a moving tribute he dedicated his victory at Castello to Laureus Academy Member Seve Ballesteros, who died last May.
LIU XIANG
Liu Xiang
As a true sporting hero to the Chinese people, nothing can overstate how important Liu Xiang’s success is to his home country.
This is why his dropping out of his main event, the 110 metres hurdles, at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 with a hamstring injury would have been such a personal setback.
Xiang went a long way toward making up for this in 2011 with a second place finish in the 110m hurdles at the Daegu World Championships.
QUEENSLAND REDS
Queensland Reds
The Queensland Reds were the team who defeated fellow Nominees the Crusaders in the Rugby Super 15 final.
And, just like the Crusaders, they had persisted through great hardship to emerge with such success in 2011.
A series of floods in late 2010 killed 35 people from their home region and the subsequent success the Crusaders found after several seasons of mediocrity gave the area a real lift and source of pride.
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Clearly all these Nominees have an inspriring story behind their success in 2011, but which one speaks the most to you?
Let us know who you would like to see win the Comeback of the Year Award in the box below.
And, of course, tweet us @LaureusSport as well and be sure to follow to find out all the latest news on the Awards and the ongoing work of the Sport for Good Foundation.
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.
The voting has offiically closed and the nominations for the 2012 Laureus World Sports Awards are finally in.
But before everyone can find out the names of those in the running at next year’s ceremony in London, the Laureus blog is taking a look back at past winners and seeing what they have gone on to achieve in the following years.
And the first in this series looks back to an inspirational sportsman who, since winning his Award, has been forced to battle through incredible adversity for the second time in his life only to emerge with great sporting success.
This sportsman was the Australian skiier Michael Milton, and his Award all the way back in 2003 was to be named the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability.
Michael accepting his Award in 2003
The Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability is often one of the most inspiring of them all, and it really was no exception when Michael received the Award in Monaco, 2003.
Michael was being recognised for his winning four Olympic Gold medals at the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002, and, in doing so, becoming the first athlete in his amputee class to win all eligible alpine skiing events.
His achievements were particularly remarkable considering the hardships he endured as a child.
Michael was only nine when he was diagnosed with cancer.
The only chance of saving his life was to amputate a leg. This was particularly devastating for the young boy having come from a family passionate about sport; inparticular, skiing.
Showing his incredible passion and strength, he was walking on an artificial leg just nine days after the amputation.
Within three months he was out on skis once again.
Collecting his Award from Laureus Academy Member Dan Marino, he said: “Who would have thought, a snow skier from Australia? Sport is about emotion, and I guess this year I could – well, for me I thought Salt Lake. Performing like I did in Salt Lake would be the Everest in terms of the highs of emotion, especially through a lifetime when perhaps there’s been some lows. But I think tonight, for me, is the Everest. Thank you.”
However, as mentioned earlier, Michael was to face further hardship during his sporting career.
In 2007 he was just starting to prepare for a radically new sporting career. Having accomplished so much as a skiier, he was now readying himself for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics to take part for Australia as a cyclist.
In July 2007, however, he was once again diagnosed with cancer, and it would seem his summer Paralympic hopes would be crushed.
He had to undergo surgery to remove a tumour from his Oesophagus and subject his body to the hardships of chemotherapy.
By this point, the Beijing Games were just 12 months away.
Incredibly, Michael recovered in time and was selected by the Australian Paralympic team to compete in three cycling events: the 1km Time Trial, the 300m Individual Pursuit on the track and the 60.5km Road Race.
there is no question that Michael was a worthy winner in 2003, but his achievements since then truly show how great a sportsperson he remains today and also how inspirational the power of sport can really be.
