Faith Kipyegon nominated for prestigious Laureus Awards 2024
26th February 2024
The 2024 winners will be announced in Madrid, Spain on April 22.
- ‘The Laureus’ is recognized as the ‘Ultimate Global Athletes’ Award’ and remains the gold standard for the stars of world sport, who each year hope to see their names added to a list of winners that includes all-time greats.
- Six Nominees have been selected in each of the traditional seven Award categories by the 1,300 members of the Laureus Global Media Panel.
- In the men’s category, Lionel Messi was again nominated alongside Djokovic, Verstappen, Haaland, Duplantis and Lyles.
Double Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon could add yet another prestigious accolade to her glittering trophy cabinet after being nominated for the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award 2024.
Kipyegon landed the nomination after an outstanding 2023 campaign that saw her etch her name among the best sporting talent athletics has ever produced.
In her 2023 season that began at home with a convincing win at the Sirikwa Cross Country in Eldoret, Kipyegon outdid herself in breaking three different records on track in a span of just two months before becoming the first woman in history to do the 1500-5000metre double at a World Championship event (Budapest 2023).
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First, the 30-year-old Kenyan improved the world 1500m record to 3:49.11 in Florence on 2 June, taking almost a full second off the previous mark.
A week later, despite having raced the 5000m just
twice before, she improved the world record for that event, too, clocking
14:05.20 in Paris to shave 1.42 seconds from the old record. (Her record has
since been broken by Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay).
Her third world record came in Monaco on 21 July, where she smashed the previous mile mark by five seconds, clocking 4:07.64.
Kipyegon will however face stiff competition in the award as she was nominated alongside Jamaica’s 200metre
ace Shericka Jackson, USA sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, Iga Swiatek (Tennis,
Poland) Aitana Bonmati (Football, Spain) and Mikaela Shiffrin (Alpine Skiing,
USA).
ALSO READ: Faith Kipyegon: From humble beginnings to global phenomenon
Richardson won a classic 100 metres from lane nine in her first global final and added 4x100 metres gold as Jackson’s winning time of 21.41 seconds in the 200 metres was the second fastest all-time, seven-hundredths of a second short of Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 35-year-old mark.
In tennis, Poland’s Swiatek won her third French Open title in 2023 and regained her No.1 spot in the world rankings with victory at the WTA
Finals in Cancun.
The footballer of the year, Bonmati, won the World
Cup and the Golden Ball for the tournament's best player - with Spain, Liga F
and the UEFA Women’s Champions League with FC Barcelona Femeni plus the Ballon
d'Or Feminin.
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Championships
Shiffrin passed the all-time mark of 86 World Cup wins set
by Ingemar Stenmark, and the American also won her seventh World Championship
gold in giant slalom.
In the men’s category, Lionel Messi was again nominated for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award after a year in which he won a record eighth Ballon d’Or and led Inter Miami CF to victory in the Leagues Cup – his 44th trophy, another record.
Djokovic, a four-time winner of the Laureus Award, won in
Melbourne, New York and Paris to move to 24 major titles, matching Margaret
Court for the all-time mark in tennis.
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2022 winner Verstappen set
records last year with ten consecutive Grand Prix wins and 19 victories in one season as
he became the fifth Formula One driver to record a hat-trick of championship
wins.
Duplantis raised his own pole vault world record on two further occasions, either side of a second world title.
No sprinter had swept the board at a World Championship since Usain Bolt in 2015, until Lyles took gold in the 100, 200 and 4 x 100 metres relay.
Haaland scored 52 goals as Manchester City won the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.
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The Laureus is recognized as the ‘Ultimate Global Athletes’ Award’ and remains the gold standard for the stars of world sport, who each year hope to see their names added to a list of winners that includes all-time greats.
Full Nominees
