PARIS: Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi was named the Laureus Sportsman of the Year, while sprint champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce bagged the top women’s honour at the awards ceremony on Monday.

Messi also received an award on behalf of the Argentina men’s football team, who were named World Team of the Year after their triumph at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The 35-year-old Paris St Germain forward has previously won the award once before, sharing it with Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton in 2020.

Messi also became the first athlete to scoop both the World Sportsman of the Year Award and the World Team of the Year Award in the same year.

“I was looking at the names of the incredible legends that won the Laureus Sportsman of the Year Award before me: Schumacher, Woods, Nadal, Federer, Bolt, Hamilton, Djokovic it really sunk in what unbelievable company I’m in and what a unique honour this is,” Messi said.

Jamaican Fraser-Pryce enjoyed an outstanding 2022, which included winning the 100m gold at the World Athletics Championships.

Tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, who won the 2022 U.S. Open and rose to number one in the ATP rankings, was named the Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year.

Christian Eriksen, who recovered from the cardiac arrest he suffered at the European Championship in 2021 to return to Premier League football with Brentford and then Manchester United before competing at the World Cup with Denmark, received the Laureus World Comeback of the Year Award.

Swiss para-athlete sensation Catherine Debrunner meanwhile picked up the Disability Award after triumphing in her opening two marathons The Sport for Good Award was presented to TeamUp — a programme for children displaced by war — by Barcelona and Poland star Robert Lewandowski.

Meanwhile, Chinese-American Olympic ski freestyle champion Eileen Gu won the World Action Sportsperson accolade.

The awards have been made annually since 2000 by a jury comprising 71 members of the Laureus World Sports Academy, representing the past 50 years of athletic excellence.

This year’s ceremony followed two virtual editions owing to Covid restrictions.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2023