Brazilian Para swimmer Gabriel Araujo wins 2026 Laureus Award

Brazilian Para swimmer Gabriel Araujo won the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award for his outstanding 2025 season, which included a hat-trick of golds at the World Para Swimming Championships in Singapore.

On the Laureus stage at the Palacio de Cibeles in Madrid on Monday evening (20 April), Araujo celebrated his award in the way that has become his trademark on Paralympic and World Championships podiums: by dancing.

“I would like to thank God and my family for everything we are building. Being here is a dream, thanks to my coach for all the support. I hope this award will be the first of many and we continue to make history. Let’s dance,” said Araujo, who received his award from Paralympic fencing champion Beatrice Vio and FC Porto President, Andre Villas-Boas.

The Brazilian delivered his speech to a standing ovation from an audience that included some of the greatest athletes of all time, among them gymnastics legends Nadia Comaneci and Simone Biles, tennis star Novak Djokovic, 14-time Paralympic swimming champion Daniel Dias, and football icons Cafu and Luis Figo.

Gabriel Araújo is the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability 🏆#Laureus26 pic.twitter.com/5KN4AkAWXv

— Laureus (@LaureusSport) April 20, 2026

It was Araujo’s first nomination and marked the sixth Laureus Awards win for a Para swimmer, as well as the second consecutive victory for the sport, following China’s Jiang Yuyan last year. Previous Para swimming winners were South Africa’s Natalie du Toit in 2010 and Brazil’s Daniel Dias, who holds the record for the most Laureus wins by a Para athlete with three statuettes in 2009, 2013 and 2016.

Araujo – or Gabrielzinho, as he is known in his home country – also became the first Brazilian Para athlete to win the award since Dias in 2016.

This year’s other nominees were Para swimmers David Kratochvil of Czechia and Simone Barlaam of Italy, Swiss wheelchair racer Catherine Debrunner, Ecuadorian Para athletics star Kiara Rodriguez, and USA Para ice hockey player Kelsey DiClaudio, the first female athlete from her sport to be shortlisted for the awards.

The Laureus World Sports Awards honours the greatest and most inspirational sporting achievements each year and showcases the work of Laureus Sport for Good to a worldwide audience.  

First staged in 2000, the Laureus World Sports Awards is the only global sports event which honours the greatest sportsmen and women across all sports.