Anna Gasser, Austria’s sportswoman of the year 2017, is also very popular worldwide. The 26-year-old snowboard world champion from Carinthia has been nominated for the Laureus World Sports Award in the category of action athletes. The prestigious award ceremony will take place on 27 January. February in Monaco.
The other nominees are surfing world champion Tyler Wright (AUS) and John John Florence (USA), snowboarder Mark McMorris (CAN), US skateboarder Nyjah Huston and French one-handed sailor Armel Le Cleac’ h. The election will be conducted by the Laureus World Sports Academy, an association of more than 60 former sports greats, including Franz Klammer from Carinthia.
So far, four Austrians have won an LWSA award: Arnold Schwarzenegger in the category “Sport for Good”in 2003, ski superstar Hermann Maier for the comeback of the year in 2004, Felix Baumgartner (action sportsman) in 2013 and three-time Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda for his life’s work in 2016. Two years ago, two years ago, Anna Veith (then named Fenninger) was an athlete or rather a ski world champion. an athlete from Austria was nominated for the Laureus.
In the category Athletes of the Year, the British athletes Mo Farah (athletics), Lewis Hamilton (formula 1) and Chris Froome (cycling), the tennis players Roger Federer (Switzerland) and Rafel Nadal (Spain) as well as the Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo are to be chosen. With Allyson Felix (athletics), Katie Ledecky (swimming), Mikaela Shiffrin (ski alpine) and Serena Williams (tennis), four US-American women have the chance to win the award, in addition to Spanish tennis player Garbine Muguruza and South African runner Caster Semenya.
Federer could even win two awards, as the Swiss is also nominated in the Comeback of the Year category.