World Record Holder and two-time London Marathon champion Brigid Kosgei as well as Boxgirls Kenya Boxing alongside Lewis Hamilton and Naomi Osaka have been nominated for the 2021 Laureus World Sport Awards.
Boxgirls, which supports and empowers at-risk girls in underserved slum communities in Nairobi, are the surprise nominees for the prestigious Laureus Sport for Good Award and will battle it out with Kickformore of Germany and Columbia’s Foundacion Colombianitos.
For Brigid Kosgei, she will fight for the sportswoman award with superstars, Osaka who won the 2021 US Open among others.
In the men’s event, Hamilton will battle it out with winner and Tennis star Rafael Nadal, basketball superstar LeBron James, Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei, who broke both the 5,000m and 10,000m world records.
Voted for by the world’s sports media, the Laureus Awards will be announced in May as part of a ‘Virtual’ Awards event aimed at not only celebrating the highest sporting achievement but also honouring those whose actions have transcended the court, track or field of play.
After a challenging year, we are more determined than ever to ensure that Laureus honours the men and women who made such an effort to return to sport, in many cases in a very different environment and without spectators. They gave everybody an emotional lift at a difficult time.
Former winners Lewis Hamilton and Rafael Nadal have been nominated again for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award. In 2020 Hamilton won a record-equalling seventh Formula One World Championship and Nadal won his 20th Grand Slam title, to tie Roger Federer.
On his nomination, Lewis Hamilton said: “It’s an honour to have been nominated for Laureus World Sportsman of the Year alongside some truly incredible athletes. When I look back at the award ceremony last year, it’s hard to believe just how much has changed. 2020 was a difficult year for so many people, for many different reasons and of course the world of sport was hugely affected.
I was fortunate enough to be able to race and I’m so proud of what we, as a team, were able to achieve together. I’m even prouder of the journey we began towards making the motorsport industry more diverse and inclusive. Nelson Mandela was the inspiration behind Laureus and I’m sure he would support everything we can do to use sport to achieve a greater good.
Also nominated are NBA super star LeBron of the Los Angeles Lakers, footballer Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich, who won the Best FIFA Men’s Player Award and two hopeful Olympians – Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, who broke both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres world records, and Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who created new outdoor and indoor pole vault world records.
Osaka, winner of the Laureus Breakthrough Award in 2019, is nominated for the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award, after her second US Open win in September. Also short-listed are Holland’s Anna van der Breggen, who won both road race and time trial at the World Cycling Championships, Italy’s Federica Brignone, skiing’s World Cup winner, Brigid Kosgey of Kenya ,Wendie Renard, captain of Lyon, who won a fifth straight Women’s Champions League, and basketball’s Breanna Stewart, who led Seattle Storm to the WNBA Championship.
