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Sherlock Holmes is giving away no clues as to the identity of the winners as he unveils the award recipients at a globally televised ceremony staged in the Shanghai Grand Theatre next Wednesday.
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who more recently starred in The Imitation Game, will be heading a star-studded cast of the best global sports stars, idolised by millions of children (and adults).
The 16th Laureus World Sports Awards is the premier honours event on the international sporting calendar.
While nominations have been decided based on global voting from sports reporters, the final decisions will rest with a unique group of 50 of the greatest sportsmen and sportswomen of all time.
It is frequently hard enough to select the top player or team in any given sport let alone compare achievements across a range – yet this is what the Laureus Awards are all about.
Competition for the World Sportsman of the Year, representing the greatest sporting achievements for the calendar year 2014, is particularly tough and raises an intriguing question as to whether a team player can raise this trophy for the first time.
The only team player on the list is the winner of the Ballon d’Or as World Player of the Year, Christiano Ronaldo. He was also named UEFA Player of the Year at the end of last season after scoring a record 17 goals for Real Madrid as they won the Champions League/ European Cup for the tenth time. Real Madrid also won the World Clubs title, Spanish Copa del Rey and UEFA Super Cup as he strives to win this award.
There are three great ‘drivers’ although, despite a great year, perhaps the one with the weakest claim is Rory McIlroy. The No.1 golfer in the world with victories in two Major Championships in 2014 – The Open and the USPGA also won the flagship BMW PGA Championship on the European Tour at Wentworth and the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone event. McIlroy is the first European to win three different Majors, which he achieved at just 25.
Lewis Hamilton would be a more obvious choice as he won his second Formula One World Championship, with 11 Grand Prix victories. He was behind for much of the season to Mercedes AMG Petronas team-mate Nico Rosberg, but won six of the final seven Grand Prix to clinch a memorable world title, winning five consecutive races for the first time. With 33 wins he is now the most successful British driver ever, overtaking Nigel Mansell who won 31.
However, in my opinion a more obvious choice would be the marvelous Marc Marquez who won his second straight World MotoGP title, at the age of 21. He opened the year with ten straight Grand Prix wins, then added three more to reach a season total of 13, beating the record of Laureus Academy member Mick Doohan, who won 12 in 1997.
Marquez is one of only four riders to have won world titles in three different classes and having won the Laureus Breakthrough Award last year is well set to make the step up.
I believe that he will be pushed close by Renaud Lavillenie who jumped 6.16 metres in Donetsk to break Laureus World Sports Academy member Sergei Bubka’s pole vault record of 6.15 metres which had stood for almost 21 years. He won 21 out of 22 competitions during the year, including winning the gold medal in the European Championship. He won six Diamond League races and was named IAAF Men’s Athlete of the Year.
Completing the list is Novak Djokovic who won this award in 2012.
Athletics could take both of the main awards should either Valerie Adams or Genzebe Dibaba claim the Sportswoman’s title.
For the fourth year in succession, Adams, the world and Olympic shot put champion ended the season undefeated, having won all 14 competitions in which she competed, bringing her unbeaten streak to 56. She was named IAAF Women’s Athlete of the Year after she won all seven Diamond League events and gold medals in the World Indoor Championships and the Commonwealth Games.
The Ethiopian athlete, Dibaba, broke three world records in two weeks in 2014. On February 1 in Karlsruhe she broke the 1,500m indoor record, five days later it was the 3,000m in Stockholm and on February 15 in Birmingham she broke the two-mile record. She joins Jesse Owens and Usain Bolt as the only athletes to break three world records in three different events in two weeks.
Given the year started with the Winter Olympics in Sochi it is a surprise not to see more of the participants present, although Marit Bjorgen and Tina Maze will be pushing for the award.
At 33, Bjorgen became the most decorated female Winter Olympian in history by winning three gold medals in the 15km Skiathlon, Team Sprint and 30km Freestyle events at Sochi. Her career successes now total six Olympic gold medals, three silvers and a bronze. She also has 12 World Championship gold medals and is ranked first in the all-time cross-country World Cup rankings.
Maze, the Slovenian skier had another memorable year when she won two gold medals in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, taking the blue riband Downhill gold, shared with Dominique Gisin, and the Giant Slalom. These were the first Winter Olympic gold medals ever won by Slovenia. In an amazing all-round performance, she was also fourth in Super Combined, fifth in Super G and eighth in Slalom.
Despite being a three-time Laureus winner it would be a surprise if Serena Williams added a fourth while Li Na is the final nominee.
I believe the winner should be either Adams or Bjorgen with the Kiwi clinching the title as just reward for such a dominant year.
Other categories include Team, Disability, Comeback, Breakthrough and Action. Each winner receives the Laureus Statuette, crafted by Cartier, with its representation of the striving human form against an engraved representation of the continents.
Among the sporting greats who have previously been named as winners of Laureus Awards over the last 15 years have been Bolt, Sebastian Coe, Djokovic, Roger Federer, Sir Alex Ferguson, Hamilton, Kelly Holmes, Yao Ming, Rafael Nadal, Pelé, Steve Redgrave, Ronaldo, Michael Schumacher, Kelly Slater and Shaun White.
The first Laureus awards were held in 2000 with ceremonies previously staged in London, Monaco, Portugal, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi and St Petersburg.
Proceeds from the Laureus World Sports Awards underpin the work of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, which supports more than 150 community sports projects around the world.
