THE GREATEST NAMES in sport gathered in Madrid as the winners of the Laureus World Sports Awards
included two tennis stars who finished 2025 as the World No.1 in the women’s and men’s games – Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz.
After sweeping six titles across the world of football, Paris Saint-Germain continued their winning streak with the Laureus World Team of the Year Award and Formula One’s Lando Norris took the stage for a breakthrough win. The 2025 Masters champion Rory McIlroy claimed a victory far longer in the making. There was a third Laureus for Chloe Kim, snowboarder supreme, and a first for Gabriel Araújo, a three-time world champion in Para Swimming, a media release said.
Guests included Nominees for this year’s Awards and Members of the Laureus World Sports Academy, the all-time legends who vote for the winners each year. For the first time in Laureus history, the show was hosted by two athletes, both former Laureus winners: Novak Djokovic and Eileen Gu.
Added to the list of those honoured this year are three additional recipients of the Laureus, the statuette awarded to the winner in each category, and the prize the greatest athletes in the world value above all other Awards: Nadia Comăneci, 50 years on from the Perfect 10 that made sporting history, Lamine Yamal, a world star at the other end of his journey, plus Toni Kroos after a career spent as a serial winner for Real Madrid.
The city of Madrid was the sporting capital of the world on a day that also saw the start of play at tennis’s Madrid Open, and five months before Formula One returns to the city for the first time since 1981. It was fitting that one of the big winners of the night was a Spanish sporting superstar.
For the first time, the Laureus Academy presented a new Award: the Laureus World Young Sportsperson of the Year Award. The inaugural winner was Lamine Yamal, FC Barcelona’s prodigious 18-year-old forward who maintained his spectacular trajectory, winning the Kopa Trophy for football’s best young talent for the second time – an unprecedented achievement. Even in a team as talented as the treble-winning Blaugrana of 2024-25, Lamine is undisputably first among equals and adds a second Laureus to his 2025 Breakthrough of the Year statuette.
Nominees for the Laureus World Sports Awards are decided by the world’s media, and the winners are voted on by the 69 members of the Laureus World Sports Academy – the ultimate sporting jury. This year the Academy also included additional discretionary Awards.
The Laureus Sporting Inspiration Award has been awarded only three times before: to Liverpool legend Mohamed Salah (2021), American footballer JJ Watt (2018) and the Refugee Olympic Team (2017). Joining those illustrious competitors this year is Toni Kroos, who retired in 2024 after a career spent compiling one of the most impressive trophy hauls in modern football.
The highest honour the Laureus World Sports Academy can bestow is the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award and this year that honour was given to Nadia Comăneci, 50 years after she scored the first Perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics history. She won three gold medals at those 1976 Games and a further two four years later. In 2000, she became a founder Member of the Laureus World Sports Academy and has played a vital role in the growth of the Laureus movement, travelling across the world to visit programmes which support diverse communities, using sport to improve outcomes and opportunities for at-risk young people. She becomes the 20th recipient of the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award and the first gymnast to be honoured. The full list of Winners is:
- Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award: Carlos Alcaraz
- Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award: Aryna Sabalenka
- Laureus World Team of the Year Award: Paris Saint-Germain
- Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year Award: Lando Norris
- Laureus World Comeback of the Year Award: Rory McIlroy
- Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award: Gabriel Araújo
- Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year Award: Chloe Kim
- Laureus World Young Sportsperson of the Year Award: Lamine Yamal
- Laureus Sporting Inspiration Award: Toni Kroos
- Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award: Nadia Comăneci
- Laureus Sport for Good Award: Fútbol Más
