And the honour goes to...

In the final part of our trilogy, today I highlight some of the leading sportswomen and disabled athletes of 2012 and name the GulfWeekly sporting champions.

Lindsey Vonn won her fourth overall women’s World Cup skiing title in five years, putting her second on the all-time list – behind Annemarie Moser-Proll’s six.

In a dominant year, Vonn also won Downhill, Super G and Combined titles. It was the fifth straight year she has won the Downhill, the fourth year she has won Super G and the third year she has won Combined.

At the end of the 2011/12 season, she had 53 World Cup wins and was closing in on Moser-Proll with 62 and Vreni Schneider with 55. Vonn was winner of the 2011 Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award.

Allyson Felix became one of the leading performers at London 2012, when she won three gold medals at one Olympiad to match the great Wilma Rudolph and Florence Griffith-Joyner.

She won the individual 200 metres, improving on silver medals in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, and also won gold medals in the 4x100m and the 4x400m relay. The American team in the 4x100 of Felix, Carmelita Jeter, Bianca Knight and Tianna Madison broke the 27-year-old world record set by East Germany in 1985.

Facing her down, as she did on the track, is the face of the Jamaican women’s sprint team, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. She had an impressive showing in this year’s Olympics winning gold in the 100m and silver in the 200m and 4x100 relay. After bursting onto the scene with gold in the 100m in Beijing then repeating in 2009 as world champion in the same event, she continued this stellar form in major championships in London, confirming her position as the fastest woman in the world.

Jessica Ennis became the hope of the British nation and the talisman of the British athletics team at the London Olympics.

First on the track in the Olympic Stadium, despite the enormous national pressure, she dominated the heptathlon and won the gold medal with a British record score of 6,955 points, beating Lilli Schwarzkopf by 306pts.

Her time in the 100m hurdles was a new British record and also the fastest time ever run in a heptathlon.

She was subsequently voted European Woman Athlete of the Year. The Olympic gold completes a full range of medals – world championship in 2009, the world indoor championship and European championship in 2010.

At age 17 Missy Franklin was one of the young stars of the London Games. She swam to four gold medals – two individuals in the 100m and 200m backstroke and two teams in the 4x100m medley and the 4x200m freestyle. She also won a bronze medal in the 4x100m freestyle. She currently holds the world record in the 200m backstroke.

Remarkably, in the modern era of fame and fortune, she continues to refuse prize money and endorsements so she can maintain her amateur status in college.

At the age of 30, and despite having to recover from a blood clot on her lung in 2011, Serena Williams enjoyed one of her greatest years, winning Wimbledon for a fifth time, the US Open for a fourth time and winning both Olympic singles and doubles gold medals, with sister Venus.

She dropped only 17 games in six matches in the singles and beat Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-1 in the final. It was a remarkable tour de force and made her only the second player after Steffi Graf to win the so-called Career Golden Grand Slam of all four Grand Slam tournaments during her career and the Olympic singles gold medal.

She is the only player in history to have won the Career Golden Grand Slam in singles and doubles.

In my opinion this race boils down to Vonn and Serena, both past winners of the Laureus Award. 

With similar career legacies the award has to be judged based on performance in 2012 and for this reason I believe Vonn edges it although Serena ought to get recognition for her comeback. Missy Franklin deserves recognition for her breakthrough.

The Paralympics was an integral part of the overall success of London 2012 and delivered some of the most memorable occasions.

Alex Zanardi’s success in winning two hand-cycling gold medals and a silver at his first Paralympic Games was made even more poignant by the fact that his successes took place at Brands Hatch, a track he competed on as a Formula One driver.

Having lost his legs in a near fatal motor racing accident in 2001, Zanardi has excelled at Paralympic sport also winning the Venice, New York and Rome marathons, setting new records in New York and Rome. Zanardi is currently training for Alpine skiing, while also being actively involved in the Bimbingamba Project, a charity he set up dedicated to helping children who have lost one or several limbs.

In arguably the most competitive class of wheelchair racing, Britain’s David Weir used the significant pressure of being the home crowd hero of London 2012 to his advantage.

Weir’s face had been on posters throughout London in the build-up to the Paralympic Games and in the T54 class, he proved unbeatable, winning a record four gold medals.

In winning at 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m, Weir beat world record holder Marcel Hug of Switzerland. His fourth and final gold in the marathon saw him beat Australia’s outstanding racer Kurt Fearnley.

Despite his tough competition schedule in London, Weir served as a mentor for a number of young athletes and continues to work with talented juniors in his London-based training group. Five months prior to London 2012, Weir won a record sixth London Marathon.

Brazil’s Daniel Dias was once again the outstanding swimmer of the Paralympic Games, winning six individual gold medals, all in world record times.

Four years earlier in Beijing, he had won four gold medals, four silver and a bronze, a feat which earned him the 2009 Laureus Disability Award. Still just 24, he will be one of the home favourites to win more gold medals when the 2016 Paralympic Games are held in Rio de Janeiro.

While the image of Zanardi holding aloft his bike in triumph was one of the iconic moments my vote goes to the Weirwolf (David Weir) for his versatility in success and the mentoring programme he ran through the Paralympics.