Messi nominated for best male athlete of the year for the third consecutive
Messi´s team, FC Barcelona, among the candidates for Best Team of the Year
Abidal Award nominee for Best comeback after recovering from cancer
The Laureus World Sports Awards will be held in London on February 6
The European champions, Barcelona, and two of their star players, Messi and Abidal have been nominated for the Laureus World Sports Awards (Laureus World Sports Awards) 2012.
Barca is among Laureus Award nominees for Best Team of the Year for the fourth time and Messi has been nominated for the third consecutive Laureus Award for Best International Male Athlete, while the Frenchman Abidal is a candidate for the Laureus Award Best international comeback year after recovering from cancer.
The Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia has also been nominated, along with Abidal, Laureus Award for Best comeback after putting an end to three years without being able to win with victories in two tournaments in a row.
A brilliant constellation of the best stars of the sport has been nominated for the Laureus World Sports Awards 2012, after the vote on the media around the world.
The Laureus World Sports Awards, which recognize sporting achievement of 2011, are the main prizes of the international sporting calendar. The names of the winners, voted by the Laureus World Sports Academy, a team of 47 supreme judges of the best sportsmen and sportswomen of all time, will be announced at a ceremony televised awards from London on Monday 6 of February.
The money raised directly benefits and supports the work of the Charity Foundation Laureus Sport for Good, which supports 89 community projects throughout the world sports. Since its inception, Laureus has raised over 40 million euros for projects that have improved the lives of over a million and half of young people.
In the category of Best Laureus international team of the year, Barcelona will face the New Zealand rugby, the All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cup, the winning team in the NBA, Dallas Mavericks, to the selection English cricket, the world´s No. 1, to the Japanese team that won women´s soccer Women´s World Cup and Formula 1 team Red Bull Formula, winning the constructors championship for the second consecutive year.
Messi will be the hope of becoming the first player in team history to win individual Laureus Award for Best international male athlete of the year. In this category are nominated Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, winner of two gold medals at the World Athletics Championships, the No. 1 tennis Novak Djokovic, winner of three Grand Slams (the Australia Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open States), the Australian cyclist Cadel Evans, winner of the Tour de France, and German Dirk Nowitzki, the first European player voted MVP of the NBA Finals and Sebastian Vettel, who was proclaimed World Champion Formula 1 for the second time consecutively.
Both Eric Abidal and Sergio Garcia have been nominated for Laureus Award for Best Comeback of the Year International. Despite having been diagnosed with a liver tumor two months ago and being treated for combat, Eric Abidal played 90 minutes of the final against Manchester United in which Barca won the Champions League. In a touching gesture to celebrate his recovery, Carles Puyol handed the captain´s armband for the match and was the first team member to receive the trophy.
In October 2011, the Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia put an end to three years without winning two tournaments wins in a row. Along with Abidal and Garcia, the other nominees are the golfer Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland, who recovered from a slump after the death of his wife and managed to win the Open, the Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang, who won the silver medal in the World Athletics Championships, and the Crusaders and the Reds, two rugby teams that reached the final of the Super 15 despite having to cope with the earthquake in Christchurch and Queensland floods.
The full list of nominees for the Laureus World Sports Awards is:
Best international male athlete of the year
Usain Bolt-
- Novak Djokovic
- Cadel Evans
- Lionel Messi
- Dirk Nowitzki
- Sebastian Vettel
Best international female athlete of the year
- Vivian Cheruiyot
- Maria Riesch
- Carmelita Jeter
- Petra Kvitova
- Homare Sawa
- Yani Tseng
Best international team of the year
All Blacks
Barcelona
Dallas Mavericks
England cricket
Japanese women´s soccer selection
Red Bull
Best International Breakthrough of the Year
- Yohan Blake
- Mo Farah
- Petra Kvitova
- Rory McIlroy
- Li Na
- Oscar Pistorius
Best international comeback year
- Eric Abidal
- Darren Clarke
- Crusaders
- Sergio Garcia
- Liu Xiang
- Queensland Reds
Disabled Sportsman of the Year International
- Daniel Dias
- Terezinha Guilhermina
- Oscar Pistorius
- Esther Vergeer
- David Weir
- Irek Zaripov
Best athlete of the year international winger
- Jamie Bestwick
- Philip Köster
- Carissa Moore
- Travis Rice
- Kelly Slater
- Shaun White