Laureus World Sports Awards: All you need to know about categories and process to select winners

For the last 17 years, the Laureus World Sports Awards have honoured those who have risen to the pinnacle of sporting excellence. Started in 2000, the Awards have been bestowed to athletes like Tiger Woods, Sir Steve Redgrave, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Roger Federer, apart from teams like Leicester City and the Brazilian football team. Tennis legend Federer and surfer Kelly Slater share the record for winning the trophy the most number of times — four. Serena Williams, meanwhile, is in the record books for being nominated nine times. She has won the award thrice. [caption id=“attachment_3875873” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Novak Djokovic with his Laureus World Sportsman of the Year trophy in 2016. AFP[/caption] But how many categories of awards are there? And how are the winners picked? There are nine Awards categories: Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year, Laureus World Team of the Year, Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year, Laureus World Comeback of the Year, Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year, the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability, the Best Sporting Moment and the Sports for Good Award. First, a nominations panel of the world’s leading sports editors, writers and broadcasters vote to create a shortlist of six entries for the first five awards — Sportsman, Sportswoman, Team, Breakthrough and Comeback. Nominations for the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year and the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability are decided by special panels — in the case of the latter, a panel from the International Paralympics Committee selects the nominees. While the public gets to pick the Best Sporting Moment, a secret ballot is held to decide the winners of the remaining awards. Members of the Laureus World Sports Academy take part in this secret ballot. Bobby Charlton, Nadia Comaneci, Martina Navratilova, Sergey Bubka, Sebastian Coe, Boris Becker and Edwin Moses are some of the Academy Members. India’s Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid are also a part of the elite panel. Each winner receives a specially crafted Laureus Statuette — 30 centimetres-tall and weighing 2.5 kilograms — which shows the representation of the striving human form. Each statuette contains 670 grams of solid silver with a 650-gram gold finish base.