The Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year (known as the Laureus World Sports Award for Newcomer of the Year prior to 2007) is an annual award honouring the achievements of those individuals or teams who have made a breakthrough performance in the world of sports. It was first awarded in 2000 as one of the seven constituent awards presented during the

Laureus World Sports Awards The Laureus World Sports Awards is an annual award ceremony honouring individuals and teams from the world of sports along with sporting achievements throughout the year. It was established in 1999 by Laureus Sport for Good Foundation foundin ...

. The awards are presented by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, a global organisation involved in more than 150 charity projects supporting 500,000 young people. The first ceremony was held on 25 May 2000 in

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

, at which Nelson Mandela gave the keynote speech. , a shortlist of six nominees for the award comes from a panel composed of the "world's leading sports editors, writers and broadcasters". The Laureus World Sports Academy then selects the individual winner or winning team who is presented with a Laureus statuette, created by Cartier, at an annual awards ceremony held in various locations around the world. The awards are considered highly prestigious and are frequently referred to as the sporting equivalent of "

Oscars The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

". The inaugural winner of the award was the Spanish

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

Sergio García Sergio García Fernández (; born 9 January 1980) is a Spanish professional golfer. He has played on the European Tour, PGA Tour and LIV Golf Invitational Series. García has won 36 international tournaments as a professional, most notably t ...

. During his debut season as a professional, the 19-year-old finished one stroke behind

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...

at the

1999 PGA Championship The 1999 PGA Championship was the 81st PGA Championship, held August 12–15 at the Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago. Tiger Woods, 23, won his first PGA Championship and second major, one stroke ahead of r ...

and became the youngest player to gain selection for

Team Europe Team Europe may refer to a number of sports team using the designate to represent a unified team of European countries in sporting competitions. Whilst neither the European Union nor the Council of Europe are countries themselves, European teams ...

for the Ryder Cup. , the award has been won by a different individual sportsperson every year (four to women, sixteen to men), although eight teams have been nominated – Ghana men's national football team (2007),

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...

(2010), Afghanistan men's national cricket team (2014),

Switzerland Davis Cup team The Switzerland men's national tennis team represents Switzerland in the Davis Cup tennis competition and is governed by Swiss Tennis. In 2007, Switzerland competed in the World Group for the 13th consecutive year – the third longest ongoing ...

(2015), Chile men's national football team (2016),

Fiji national rugby sevens team The Fiji National Rugby Sevens Team has competed in the World Rugby Sevens Series, Rugby World Cup Sevens and the Olympics. Fiji won the gold medal in the inaugural rugby sevens at the Summer Olympics in 2016 in Br ...

(2017),

Iceland national football team The Iceland national football team (in ) represents Iceland in men's international football. The team is controlled by the Football Association of Iceland, and have been a FIFA member since 1947 and an UEFA member since 1957. The team's nickn ...

(2017) and Leicester City F.C. (2017). British and Spanish sportspeople have won more awards than any other nationality with four, followed by Americans, Germans and Chinese with two. Golfers are the most successful overall with six wins followed by

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

drivers with five. The winner in 2017 was the German Formula One driver

Nico Rosberg Nico Erik Rosberg (born 27 June 1985) is a German-Finnish former professional racing driver. He competed in Formula One from 2006 to 2016, winning the World Drivers' Championship in with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport. The only child of Fi ...

. Having beaten teammate

Lewis Hamilton Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton (born 7 January 1985) is a British racing driver currently competing in Formula One for Mercedes. In Formula One, Hamilton has won a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles (tied with Mic ...

to the 2016 World Championship title by five points, Rosberg announced his retirement from the sport five days later, two months prior to collecting his Laureus statuette. The 2022 winner of the Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year was British tennis player

Emma Raducanu Emma Raducanu (born 13 November 2002) is a British professional tennis player. She reached a career-high ranking of No. 10 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on 11 July 2022, and is the current British No. 1. Raducanu is the first British ...

List of winners and nominees

Statistics

:''Statistics are correct as of 2022 winners.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laureus World Sports Award For Breakthrough Of The Year

Breakthrough of the Year The Breakthrough of the Year is an annual award for the most significant development in scientific research made by the AAAS journal ''Science,'' an academic journal covering all branches of science. Originating in 1989 as the ''Molecule of the Ye ...

Awards established in 2000