Bolt and Ennis among four athletics winners at prestigious world sports awards

Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt and all-round talent Jessica Ennis scooped the main prizes at last night’s Laureus World Sports Awards in Rio de Janeiro.

Meanwhile, 400m Hurdler Felix Sanchez won the Comeback of the Year award and London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. It meant that for the first time ever at the Laureus World Sports Awards, track and field athletes took home four of the nine accolades on offer.

At last year’s London Olympics, Usain Bolt became the first athlete in history to successfully defend his titles in three sprinting events – the 100m, 200m and 4x100m Relay, the latter with a world record of 36.84.

Bolt – who last year was crowned the IAAF 2012 World Athlete of the Year – has now won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award three times, following his triumphs in 2009 and 2010, and is the only athlete to date to win this award.

Ennis landed the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year following her victory in the Heptathlon at last year’s Olympics. Touted as ‘the face of the Games’, Ennis brushed off the pressure from the home crowd to put together a stunning series of marks, setting PBs in three of the seven events to win by more than 300 points with a national record of 6955.

Ennis succeeds Vivian Cheruiyot as the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year. Athletes who have won this award previously include Yelena Isinbayeva (twice), Kelly Holmes and Cathy Freeman.

Sanchez produced one of the biggest surprises of the London Olympics. Ranked seventh in the world going into the Games and just weeks away from turning 35, Sanchez rolled back the years to run a world-leading 47.63 to win the 400m Hurdles.

It meant he regained the title he first won in 2004, and coincidentally matched the time he ran on that occasion in Athens. Sanchez is the second athlete to win the Laureus Comeback of the Year award, following Paula Radcliffe in 2008.

Coe, the 1980 and 1984 Olympic 1500m champion, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for leading the successful delivery of the Olympics and Paralympics.

“The most honoured and sincere awards that can ever be given are those by your peers,” said Coe. “This is an extraordinary honour. You only have to look at the good people you are surrounded by.”

The winners of the annual awards were chosen by nearly 50 members of the Laureus sports academy, which includes the likes of legendary athletes Ed Moses, Michael Johnson, Nawal El Moutawakel and Sergey Bubka.

The other awards on offer went to the European Ryder Cup Team for Team of the Year, Brazilian swimmer Daniel Dias for Sportsperson with a Disability, tennis player Andy Murray for Breakthrough of the Year, Felix Baumgartner for Action Sportsperson and American swimmer Michael Phelps for the Exceptional Achievement Award.

IAAF