Nominations for the ‘Sports Oscar’, Laureus Award have just been announced. In the individual men’s category, Lionel Messi will compete with Rafael Nadal and 4 other big names.
Yesterday, Laureus World Sport Awards 2023 announced the list of nominations for the main awards. Laureus Award was established in 1999 and quickly became the most prestigious award in the sports industry. It has even been compared to the Oscars of cinema.
As usual, the award for “Best Male Sportsman of the Year” still attracts great attention from fans. This year, there are 6 stars that have the honor to make this list, including 2 football players, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe. The remaining names are Max Verstappen (F1 – Netherlands), Dondo Duplantis (athletics – Sweden), Rafael Nadal (Tennis – Spain) and Stephen Curry (Basketball – USA).
According to the general opinion of experts, the two brightest names for this year’s award are Messi and Nadal. While Messi helped Argentina win the World Cup following 36 years, Nadal overcame injury to win 2 Grand Slams, thereby setting a new record (winning a total of 22 Grand Slams in his career).
Both Messi and Nadal create exceptional inspirational stories not only for their fans, but for many other athletes around the world. In the past, Messi won the Laureus award in 2020 with F1 driver Lewis Hamilton. Meanwhile, Nadal has twice been honored in 2011 and 2021.
In Laureus Awards history, tennis is dominating the category for best male athlete. Specifically, Roger Federer is leading with 5 wins, followed by Novak Djokovic with 4 times – equal to athletics legend Usain Bolt.
