Messi wins his second "Sports Oscar".

Updated: 09/05/2023 08:02:12

Forward Lionel Messi was honored as Male Athlete of the Year at the Laureus Awards in Paris on Monday. The Laureus World Sports Awards, considered the “Oscars of world sports ,” is an annual award that recognizes the best performing athletes and sports teams of the year.

Lionel Messi became the first athlete to win both the Laureus Award for individual and team performance in the same year.

The 2022 World Cup victory continued to bring great honors to the individuals and teams who contributed to it at the Laureus Awards ceremony. Captain Messi was honored as Athlete of the Year, while the Argentine national team won the Best Team of the Year award. Messi also became the first athlete to win both the individual and team Laureus awards in the same year.

This is the second time the 35-year-old PSG superstar has received this honor – after first sharing it with Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton in 2020. “I’m looking at the names of the legends who have won this prestigious award before me: Schumacher, Woods, Nadal, Federer, Bolt, Hamilton, Djokovic… and this is a one-of-a-kind honor,” Messi shared.

In other awards, sprint champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won the Men's Athlete of the Year title after an outstanding 2022, which included winning the 100m gold medal at the World Athletics Championships. Tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, who won the 2022 US Open and rose to number one in the ATP rankings, was honored as the Breakthrough Athlete of the Year.

Midfielder Christian Eriksen, who recovered from a cardiac arrest at Euro 2022 in 2021 but was able to return to playing in the Premier League, first with Brentford and then Manchester United, before playing in the World Cup with Denmark, received the Comeback of the Year award. The Disability of the Year award went to Catherine Debrunner. The Action of the Year award was given to Eileen Gu.

The Laureus World Sports Awards were launched in 2000. Nominees are selected by global media outlets, while 71 members of the Laureus World Sports Academy choose the winners in each category. Squash legend Roger Federer holds the record for five awards and is the only player to have won four consecutive years. Novak Djokovic has four awards, followed by Usain Bolt (three), and Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher, Rafael Nadal, and Messi each have two.

According to THANH TUAN (SGGP)

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