Next year's Olympic and Paralympic Games host city Paris will host the 2023 Laureus World Sport Awards ©Laureus

Argentina’s FIFA World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi and his Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Kylian Mbappé, who scored a hat-trick in the final, are among athletes who will assemble in next year's Olympic and Paralympic Games host city Paris on May 8 for the 2023 Laureus World Sports Awards.

Other contenders for the Sportsman award at an actual event that will follow two years of virtual presentations due to COVID-19 include American basketball star Steph Curry, Sweden's world and Olympic pole vault champion and world record holder Mondo Duplantis and The Netherlands Formula One world champion Max Verstappen, last year's winner.

Also present will be Rafael Nadal, who earned a record 14th French Open title in Paris last May to go top of the all-time list of men’s Grand Slam champions with 22 titles.

Among those in contention for the Sportswoman award are Jamaica's world 100 metres champion Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce, America's Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the world 400m hurdles champion and world record holder, and Katie Ledecky of the United States, whose four world golds last year took her total of medals to a record 22.

Tennis will be represented by Poland's Iga Świątek who, like Nadal, triumphed at Roland Garros in 2022 and who followed it up by winning the US Open.


Dutch Formula One world champion Max Verstappen, a winner at last year's Laureus World Sports Awards, is among the nominees again for 2023 ©Laureus
Dutch Formula One world champion Max Verstappen, a winner at last year's Laureus World Sports Awards, is among the nominees again for 2023 ©Laureus

The French men’s rugby union team that won the 2022 Six Nations Grand Slam has been nominated in the Team of the Year category, along with Messi’s Argentina.


The 19-year-old tennis player Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, who became world number one last year and won the US Open, Scottie Scheffler of the United States, the 2022 Masters golf winner, and Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina, the winner at Wimbledon, are nominated for the Breakthrough award.

Denmark’s Christian Eriksen, who had to be rescuscitated on the pitch during a Euro 2020 match played in 2021 after his heart stopped beating, is among the contenders for the Comeback award.

After being fitted with a heart implant he returned to football eight months later with Brentford and transferred to Manchester United the following season.

Lionel Messi, who led Argentina to victory in last year's FIFA World Cup, is among nominations for the 2023 Laureus World Sports Awards which will be held in Paris ©Getty Images
Lionel Messi, who led Argentina to victory in last year's FIFA World Cup, is among nominations for the 2023 Laureus World Sports Awards which will be held in Paris ©Getty Images

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, one of the 71 members of the Laureus World Sports Academy who select the Awards winners, commented: "With the Rugby World Cup and then the Olympics, Paris is about to become the centre of the sporting world.

"There’s no better way to begin than with the Laureus Awards."

The Laureus World Sports Awards will once again be broadcast around the world, available in more than countries to a potential audience of over one billion people.

More details about the event, including a venue, are due to be announced shortly.