Leo Messi and Rafa Nadal, as the best athletes of 2022, Carlos Alcaraz, as a revelation, and Alexia Putellas, as the best female athlete, aspire to the Laureus awards that are delivered this Monday in Paris, almost a year after the French capital hosts the Olympic Games.
After two editions without a face-to-face gala due to the pandemic, those considered Sports Oscars will deliver their awards divided into eight categories at the luxurious Pavillon Vendome, in the center of Paris.
For the award for best athlete of the year after leading Argentina to the world title, will opt for Messi, who lives low hours in Paris due to the sanction of two weeks without employment and salary that PSG has imposed on him for having missed training for a promotional trip to Saudi Arabia, not authorized by the club.
The presence or not of Messi in a gala that is celebrated a few kilometers from his home is one of the big questions of the ceremony. The 35-year-old Argentine will face his PSG teammate Kylian Mbappé, world runner-up in Qatar 2022, and Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal, who after winning the Australian Open and Roland Garros in 2022 added 22 victories of grand slams.
Nor has the presence of any of them been confirmed for the moment. Nadal, 36, has not competed for more than three months due to his physical problems and his presence at Roland Garros, which begins in three weeks, is unknown.
The list of candidates for best athlete in the male category is completed by the Dutchman Max Verstappen, two-time Formula 1 world champion; the Swedish Mondo Duplantis, pole vault world record holder; and the American Stephen Curry, MVP of the NBA finals.
In the women’s category, the Spanish soccer player and Barcelona captain, Alexia Putellas, is once again nominated after winning her second Ballon d’Or in a row.
The Catalan will have a difficult time, as she missed almost half of 2022 due to a serious knee injury that kept her out until a few days ago. In any case, she will compete with the Polish tennis player Iwa Swiatek, the American swimmer Katie Ledecky and the skier, also American, Mikaela Shiffrin, among others.
In the team category, the soccer world champion, Argentina, will face Real Madrid, champion of the League in Spain and winner of the Champions League for the fourteenth time in 2022; and the England women’s team, winner of the last Euro Cup.
The list is completed by the French men’s rugby team, which won the Six Nations in 2022 after twelve years; the Golden State Warriors (USA), champions of the NBA for the fourth time in eight years; and the Oracle Red Bull Racing team (Austria), which was proclaimed Formula 1 constructors’ champion after beating Mercedes after eight years.
The award for the revelation athlete includes among its candidates the Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, after winning the United States Open and becoming the youngest male world number one in history.
The Murcian, who is expected to attend the gala one day after the final of the Masters 1,000 in Madrid, will have as rivals the Kazakh tennis player Elena Rybakina and the Moroccan soccer team, fourth in Qatar, among others.
The Laureus will also honor the comeback of the year, with American golfer Tiger Woods and Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen among their contenders.
Likewise, the Brazilians Felipe Toledo (surfer) and Rayssa Leal (skate) are nominated in the extreme sports category. Leal, 15 years old, was a silver medalist in Tokyo at the age of 13.
The best Paralympic athlete of 2022 will also be awarded and the New Zealand swimmer Cameron Leslei and the Swiss athlete Catherine Debrunner are competing for the award.
The only category that was revealed in advance was that of “Sport for Good”. The “TeamUp” initiative, in favor of the psychosocial well-being of children affected by the war, has been the winner, the organization announced this Sunday.
‘TeamUp’, developed by Save the Children, Unicef ​​Netherlands and War Child, is present in 26 countries. This initiative has been applied in 2022 in Poland with Ukrainian refugee children because of the Russian invasion.
