South African swimmer Natalie du Toit and Mozambique’s ‘golden girl’ Maria Mutola are among those nominated for the 2004 Laureus World Sports Awards.
In a statement on Tuesday, Morné du Plessis, chairperson of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation Trust SA, said: ”It is the first time since the foundation of the awards five years ago that we count three Africans, one of them a home-grown woman of immense courage, in the ranks of those nominated.
‘We are intensely proud that Natalie du Toit, who has become an inspiring role model for thousands of disabled as well as able-bodied people for the courage, quiet determination and goal-driven self-confidence she has displayed, has been put forward as worthy for a Laureus World Sports Awards.”
The third African, Nigerian athlete, Vitalis Lanshima, is nominated for a Laureus World Sports Award, and also in the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability category.
Other nominations in this category are Canadian athlete Earle Connor, alpine skier Ronny Persson, German cyclist Michael Teuber and British dressage world champion Nicola Tustain.
The Laureus World Sports Awards nominations, made over the last month by the Laureus selection panel of over 400 sports journalists from 73 countries, were announced in a series of worldwide press events.
Other nominations for the Sportswoman of the Year Award are Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruijn, Belgium’s Justine Henin-Hardenne, winner of three tennis Grand Slams, British athlete Paula Radcliffe and Annika Sorenstam, who completed golf’s Grand Slam, as well as Wimbledon winner Serena Williams.
Michael Schumacher has been nominated for Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for the fourth time.
Michelle Wie, golf’s prodigious 14-year-old, who became the first woman to shoot a sub-par round on the men’s PGA Tour, is nominated for Newcomer of the Year with Formula One’s Fernando Alonso, Ben Curtis, who won the British Open in his first-ever major golf championship, US basketball prodigy LeBron James, Brazilian footballer Robinho and Russia’s 16-year-old tennis star Maria Sharapova.
In the Alternative Sportsperson of the Year awards Australian surfing legend Layne Beachley has been shortlisted along with American snowboarders Gretchen Bleiler and Shaun White, French mountain biker Anne-Caroline Chausson, American surfer Laird Hamilton and 14-year-old American skateboarder Ryan Sheckler.
The winners will be unveiled during a TV ceremony staged at the Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon on May 10. – Sapa