The Spanish tennis players Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, the soccer player Alexia Putellas and Real Madrid appear, among others, in the list of nominees for the 2023 Laureus World Sports Awards, after voting by the sports media from all over the planet and whose winners will be revealed next spring.
Rafa Nadal, a three-time Laureus winner, is nominated for the World Sportsman of the Year Award, after winning the Australian Open and Roland Garros in 2022, his 21st and 22nd wins in a ‘big’. Nadal became the fourth player, along with Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and Novak Djokovic, to win the ‘big four’ at least twice.
Nadal will face soccer players Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, two-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen, pole vault star Mondo Duplantis and NBA Finals MVP Stephen Curry for the award.
For his part, Carlos Alcaraz is nominated for the World Revelation of the Year Award after winning the US Open and becoming the youngest male world number 1 in history, at 19 years, 4 months and 6 days. His rivals will be Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, 100m hurdles world champion Tobi Amusan, figure skater Nathan Chen, Masters winner Scottie Scheffler, and the Moroccan soccer team, the first African nation to reach the semifinals of the World Cup.
Seventh nomination for Real Madrid
Under the management of Carlo Ancelotti, Real Madrid won its fourteenth Champions League, fifth success in nine years. It was also Ancelotti’s fourth Champions League as manager and the white team also won their 35th League title and the Spanish Super Cup. It is his seventh nomination for the Laureus Award for World Team of the Year.
Real Madrid competes with the soccer teams of Argentina, winner of the World Cup in Qatar 2022, and the women’s team of England, European champion, Golden State Warriors, NBA champion, Oracle Red Bull Racing, and the French men’s rugby team , which took the Six Nations title after 12 years of waiting.
For her part, the captain of Barcelona, Alexia Putellas, is nominated for the second consecutive year as Best Sportsperson of the Year after winning the Ballon d’Or twice in a row. Putellas won with her club in all 30 league games of the 2021-2021 season. 22 and was the top scorer, with 11 goals, in the Champions League.
Putellas will compete for the award with gold medal-winning athletes Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, world tennis number 1 Iga Swiatek, American swimmer Katie Ledecky and overall winner of the Ski World Cup , Mikaela Shiffrin.
Shortlisted for the best comeback award include golfer Tiger Woods, who returned to play in the Masters fourteen months after a serious car accident, and Christian Eriksen, back in football after suffering a cardiac arrest on the course during a Euro 2020 match with Denmark.
The six nominees in each Laureus category are chosen by a vote of 1,400 of the world’s leading sports journalists, editors and broadcasters, except in the case of the Laureus Award for World Sportsperson with Disability and Laureus Award for Sport for Disability shortlists. Good, which are chosen by specialists.