SEVILLE: Formula One champion Max Verstappen was named the 2022 Laureus Sportsman of the Year while triple Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Elaine Thompson-Herah bagged the top women’s honour at the digital awards ceremony in Seville on Sunday.
Verstappen became the first Dutch driver to win the world championship when he clinched his maiden crown by beating seven-time winner Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the last race of the 2021 season in Abu Dhabi in December.
“Since I was a little kid, I dreamt of being on the top step and winning the championship,” the 24-year-old Verstappen said. “The reaction back in Holland was amazing from all the newspapers and fans. It’s something we’ll never forget. It was a lot of hard work and years of preparation. I’m incredibly proud... It means a lot to be recognised for this award, one of the highest ones in the world, so I’m incredibly happy.”
Verstappen, who won the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix earlier on Sunday, follows Rafael Nadal who won the men’s award last year and his great rival Lewis Hamilton, who shared the men’s prize with Lionel Messi in 2020.
Jamaica’s Thompson-Herah became the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic sprint doubles when she retained her 100m and 200m titles in Tokyo last year and capped a memorable Games with gold in the 4x100m relay.
“I know Usain [Bolt] has won Laureus Awards before, so to bring this trophy back home to the Caribbean, also in Jamaica, is very special,” Thompson-Herah said. “I have watched that [100m] race about a thousand times now. I would say I am very, very proud, but I cannot dwell on the past... My motivation is to be even better. I told myself that I want to be the greatest female sprinter.”
The awards are organised by the Laureus Sports Foundation and the 2021 winners were selected by a 71-member panel led by All Black rugby great Sean Fitzpatrick.
In a sign of how ephemeral sporting achievements can be, the Italian men’s football team, who followed winning the Euros last year with missing the World Cup this spring, were voted the ‘Team of the Year’, for a second time, having previously received the honour after winning the World Cup in 2006.
British tennis starlet Emma Raducanu, who has struggled for consistency since winning the US Open last year, received the ‘Breakthrough of the Year’ award.
The ceremony mopped up other big stars with a series of special awards.
NFL great Tom Brady, who made a U-turn on his retirement plans this year, was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award after winning a record seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Polish striker Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich won the Exceptional Achievement award after scoring a German Bundesliga record of 41 goals last season to break Gerd Muller’s 49-year-old mark.
Seven-time MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi, who called time on a career spanning more than two decades last year, won the Sporting Icon award — his third Laureus honour having scooped the Comeback of the Year (2011) and Spirit of Sport (2006) awards.
“This Award was founded in the year 2000 when Nelson Mandela said ‘sport has the power to change the world’ and I totally agree with that,” said Brady. “Pele was voted for this Award in 2000. Billie Jean King was voted last year. People I really looked up to.”
Skateboarder Sky Brown won the ‘Comeback of the Year’ award aged 13.
She fractured her skull in training in June 2020 and was unresponsive when she arrived at hospital. She recovered and competed in Tokyo winning bronze and becoming Britain’syoungest Olympic medallist at 13 years and 28 days.
Swiss wheelchair racer Marcel Hug was named ‘World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability’ for the second time after winning Tokyo Paralympics golds in 800, 1,500, with a world record time, 5,000 and marathon.
He also won the Berlin, New York and Boston marathons in 2021.
Briton Bethany Shriever took the ‘Action Sportsperson’ award after winning both Olympic and World Championship BMX golds. She financed her Olympic campaign with crowdfunding after UK Sport cut support.
The Real Madrid Foundation and a Chicago youth baseball programme Lost Boyz Inc, were also recognised with awards.
Gerald Asamoah, a former Germany international, and other black German footballers known collectively as the ‘Black Eagles’ won the ‘Athlete Advocate’ award for campaigning against racism.
Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2022
