| Simone Biles stepped to the top of the Olympic podium three times in Paris last summer, and tonight she took a bow once more, this time on the stage of the Laureus World Sports Awards as she received her fourth Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award. As the most prestigious awards night on the sporting calendar celebrated its own silver anniversary, another consensus G.O.A.T. of his sport, Kelly Slater, received the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of his long and glorious career as surfing’s greatest champion. At Madrid’s Palacio de Cibeles, the greatest athletes of the past as well as the present were in attendance, and stars from the worlds of entertainment, fashion and business walked the red carpet alongside them. Other big winners included Mondo Duplantis, the double-Olympic pole vault champion who raised his own world record three times in 2024 and won Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award; and Rebeca Andrade, Biles’ Brazilian rival, honored here for her comeback from three ACL injuries which ended with gold on the floor in Paris. The Awards evening launched a multi-media wave of posts, coverage and broadcast around the world, as athletes, media and content creators reacted to this year’s winners – each presented with ‘The Laureus’ – the coveted statuette awarded to the winner in each category and the prize the greatest athletes in the world value above all other – voted on by the 69 sporting legends of the Laureus World Sports Academy. Biles won the Comeback of the Year Award here last year, after returning from a near two-year break from the sport she had dominated. In 2024, her ‘Redemption Tour’ took her back to the Olympic stage and in Paris she won gold in the all-around, vault and women’s team categories. In many ways Biles defies comparison, but at these Awards that is not the case: she now stands next to Serena Williams, the only other athlete to have won the Sportswoman of the Year Award four times – both were also honored in the Comeback category during stellar careers. For Slater, the Lifetime Achievement Award recognized an elite career that spanned three decades. He is both the youngest (aged 20) and the oldest (39) surfer to win the world title, and he did so 11 times in total. He is a four-time winner of the World Action Sportsperson of the Year Award and received his fifth Laureus to a standing ovation in Madrid. Tom Pidcock follows Slater as a winner of the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year after winning the Olympic mountain bike cross country title in unforgettable fashion after a puncture, a wheel change and a daring late overtake of home favorite Victor Koretsky. Paralympic swimming superstar Jiang Yuyan collected the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award after winning seven para swimming golds from seven events in the pool, matching the feat of Laureus Academy Member Mark Spitz. The 19-year-old also set two individual world records. Real Madrid are the Laureus World Team of the Year after a year in which they won soccer’s Champions League – for a record-extending 15th time – and La Liga, for the 36th time, another record. |
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