Multiple Olympic and Paralympic medallists recognised for Tokyo success ahead of 22nd edition of Laureus Awards
Allyson Felix, Elaine Thompson-Herah, Eliud Kipchoge, Neeraj Chopra, Yulimar Rojas and Marcel Hug have been nominated for the prestigious Laureus Awards as sport pays homage to the scintillating track and field action at Tokyo last year.
All of the nominated athletes from athletics won either an Olympic or Paralympic gold medal in Japan, some for the first time while others just added to an already stacked golden tally.
Allyson Felix is one of those athletes. She is nominated for Laureus Sportswoman of the Year after winning a seventh Olympic gold medal in Tokyo bringing her overall collection to 11 medals. Not only did she become Olympic champion in four consecutive games but the 36-year-old American became the most decorated track and field athlete in US history after overtaking Carl Lewis.
Only the great Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi has won more track and field Olympic medals with 12 between 1920-1928.
Elaine Thompson-Herah (Getty)
Elaine Thompson-Herah also joins Felix in being nominated for Laureus Sportswoman of the Year. The 29-year-old Jamaican dominated the sprints in Tokyo after winning three gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m which included breaking Florence Griffith Joyner’s then 33-year-old Olympic record in the 100m with 10.61.
She became the first woman to win the sprint double-double having already claimed golds in both the 100m and 200m at Rio 2016. Thompson-Herah now has five Olympic gold medals.
In our February Magazine, she exclusively told AW: “I’m proud of both performances because they each require something different, but one complements each other.
“If I’m pain free I feel unbeatable. I expect this level to continue to rise because the ladies are starting to believe the unbelievable.”
If either Felix or Thompson-Herah win the award then they will join a rich list of female athletes who have been crowned Laureus Sportswoman of the Year with Cathy Freeman (2001), Kelly Holmes (2005), Yelena Isinbayeva (2007 and 2009), Vivian Cheruiyot (2012), Jessica Ennis (2013) and Genzebe Dibaba (2015) having won it.
Eliud Kipchoge (Getty)
Elsewhere, double Olympic marathon champion and marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge has been nominated for Laureus Sportsman of the Year. After triumphing in the sweaty Sapporo streets during last year’s Olympic marathon, the 37-year-old Kenyan became only the third man in history to win back-to-back Olympic marathon titles after Abebe Bikila (1960 and 1964) and Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 and 1980).
He recently announced that it was his intention to create history by winning a third consecutive Olympic marathon title at Paris 2024.
Usain Bolt – on four occasions in 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2017 – is the only male nomination from athletics to become Laureus Sportsman of the Year.
The two athletics nominations for Laureus Breakthrough of the Year are Neeraj Chopra and Yulimar Rojas, two athletes who both won their nation’s first ever Olympic gold medal in athletics.
Chopra made headlines across India after beating the favourite Johannes Vetter to win the gold medal in the javelin. It was India’s first gold medal at the Olympics since 2008 and their first medal in athletics since Norman Pritchard won two silvers over the 200m and 200m hurdles at Paris 1900.
It’s safe to say that the 24-year-old has inspired a new generation of athletics fans in India after multiple Olympic and world javelin medallist and four-time European champion Steve Backley told AW, as part of our monthly Ask The Athlete series, that javelins were “selling out” in India.
Yulimar Rojas celebrates her world record (Getty)
Rojas stunned the athletics world in Tokyo after not just winning gold with comfortable ease but the fact she smashed Inessa Kravets’ then 26-year-old triple jump world record by 17cm with 15.67m.
The 26-year-old Venezuelan now holds two Olympic medals after winning silver at Rio 2016 and such is the confidence and flexibility of the world record holder that she may try her luck in doubling up in the long jump in 2022.
Marcel Hug has also been nominated for the Laureus Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability, having already won it in 2018.
In 2021, the Swiss T54 athlete was in a league of his own. He won an astonishing four gold medals at the Paralympics across a range of disciplines from 800m and 1500m and 5000m and the marathon. It now brings his tally to 12 Paralympic medals of which half are gold.
Hug followed up success in Tokyo with domination in the Abbott World Major Marathons with victories in Berlin, Boston and New York.
If the 36-year-old Swiss wins the Laureus Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability award then he will be the first athletics representative to win it on more than one occasion. Other athletics winners include: Louise Sauvage (2000), Chantal Petitclerc (2005), Ernst van Dyk (2006) and Tatyana McFadden (2015).
The winners will be announced by Laureus in April.
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