Six Paralympians Up for Monday’s Laureus World Sports Awards

Brazil's sprinter at the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand. © • Getty Images Oscar Pistorius of South Africa competes in the T44 400m event during the 2011 BT Paralympic World Cup Athletics in Manchester, Great Britain. © • Getty Images Esther Vergeer celebrating a point at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games. © • Rob Prezioso David Wear competing at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games. © • Lieven Coudenys Irek Zaripov of Russia was one of the stars of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. © • Getty Images

The world’s top para-sport stars will be in London on Monday evening (6 February) for the 2012 Laureus World Sports Awards, which recognize the top sporting achievements in the world from the 2011 calendar year.

The shortlist for the Laureus Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability includes: Daniel Dias, Terezinha Guilhermina, Oscar Pistorius, Esther Vergeer, David Weir and Irek Zaripov.

The winner will be voted on by the Laureus World Sports Academy, which is made up of 47 of the greatest sportsmen and sportswomen of all time.

Pistorius has also been nominated for the Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year Award after becoming the first amputee to win a track medal in the able-bodied World Athletics Championships in Daegu, Korea. Other nominees in the category include: Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake, British athlete Mo Farah, Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy, who won the US Open at 22, Petra Kvitova, who won her first Grand Slam at Wimbledon at just 21 and French Open champion Li Na, China’s first-ever tennis Grand Slam winner.

Nominees for the Laureus Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability include:

Daniel Dias (Brazil) Swimming

Dias will compete at his second Paralympic Games in London in 2012 with high expectations. The 23-year-old Brazilian swimmer won a total of nine medals, four of which were gold, at Beijing 2008, which helped him to win the 2009 Laureus Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award. His last big event on the road to London this year was the 2011 Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he was the leading star of the Games, swimming to first place in all of his events to come away with 11 gold medals and setting Games records in seven of his races.

Dias was born with malformed upper and lower limbs and took up swimming at the age of 16 after watching fellow Brazilian Clodoaldo Silva at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games. He learned all four strokes in just two months.

Terezinha Guilhermina (Brazil) Athletics

Although a big name in Brazil following her gold medal in the 200m T11 event in at the Beijing Games, it was not until 2011 that the world took notice of the visually impaired runner. At the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Athletics World Championships in New Zealand, she won four gold medals and set a host of records. She lowered her own 100m world record, set in 2007, from 12.27 to 12.13 and in the 200m ran 24.98 to break the world record that had stood for 10 years. She also took gold in the 400m and as part of the 4x100m relay team.

Six months later, she clocked a time of 12.04 to lower her 100m record further. Her 2011 campaign ended with three more gold medals at the Parapan American Games in Guadalajara.

She is now the world-record holder in the 100, 200 and 400-metre sprints and is a strong contender for gold medals at London 2012.

Oscar Pistorius (South Africa) Athletics

Known as the ‘Blade Runner’, in August 2011, Pistorius became the first amputee to win an able-bodied World Championship track medal, as a member of the South African silver-medal-winning 4x400m relay team, in Daegu, Korea.

In para-sport in 2011, Pistorius suffered his first defeat in seven years when the USA’s Jerome Singleton took the gold medal in a thrilling 100m race at the IPC Athletics World Championships in New Zealand, but he won gold in the 200m 400m and 4x100m relay. At the BT Paralympic World Cup in May, Pistorius smashed his own 400m Paralympic world record, recording a time of 47.28.

Pistorius, 25, was born with a congenital absence of the fibula and his legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old. Now, he runs with the aid of carbon fibre blades.

Esther Vergeer (the Netherlands) Wheelchair Tennis

As arguably the greatest Wheelchair Tennis player of all time, this is the sixth time Vergeer has been nominated for the Laureus Disability Award. She was a winner of the Award in 2002 and 2008 and was also nominated in 2006, 2007 and 2011. One of the greatest Paralympians in history, Vergeer has not lost a singles wheelchair tennis match in nine years. Her last defeat was in January 2003. In her career, she has won 40 Grand Slam titles, three Paralympic singles golds and two Paralympic doubles golds.

Vergeer, now 29, was paralyzed from the waist down in 1990 after undergoing surgery for a spinal defect and brain haemorrhage. She found she had an aptitude for wheelchair tennis and basketball, eventually choosing to concentrate on tennis from the time she was 17. By October 2000, she became the world’s best player and has been at the top of the standings ever since.

David Weir (Great Britain) Athletics

At the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships in New Zealand many expected world-record holder Marcel Hug from Switzerland to be the dominant force, but Weir proved himself a tactical genius and knew exactly where he needed to be at the right time to win gold in the 800, 1,500 and 5,000-metre T54 wheelchair events, leaving Hug with silver medals in each category.

As his face has appeared on advertising billboards, newspapers and local buses, Weir will be one of the most recognizable athletes taking part in next summer’s Paralympic Games in London and one of Britain’s best hopes for a gold medal. Since his first Paralympic Games in Athens in 2004, he has won six medals, including two gold, six world titles and five London Marathons.

Irek Zaripov (Russia) Nordic Skiing

Russia’s Irek Zaripov won six medals at the 2011 IPC Nordic Skiing World Championships in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia. He won gold in the 10km Cross-Country and the 7.5km and 12.5km Biathlon. He also picked up silver medals in the men’s 3km Biathlon Pursuit and 15km Cross-Country, as well as a bronze in the 0.9km Cross-Country Sprint.

The 28-year-old only started skiing competitively in 2005, when he parents persuaded him to take up sport. He had lost both legs when he was involved in a motorcycle accident when he was just 17. At the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, Zaripov wowed the crowds with four gold medals and a silver. Zaripov is now training to compete at home in the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympic Games.

The 2012 Laureus World Sports Awards Ceremony will be attended by the greatest names in sport, past and present, and broadcast to a worldwide TV audience from the heart of London at Central Hall, Westminster on Monday evening (6 February).

Proceeds from the awards directly benefit and underpin the work of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, which supports almost 80 community projects around the world that have helped improve the lives of more than one million young people through sport.