Sports legends to announce names of Laureus World Sports Awards nominees

French World Cup winner Marcel Desailly, top football coach André Villas-Boas and five-times world motor cycling champion Mick Doohan will reveal the names of the six outstanding sportsmen, sportswomen and teams in seven different categories, following a ballot by the world’s media.

The announcement will be made in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, February 26 – exactly one month before the 15th Laureus World Sports Awards is staged in the Malaysian capital.

The Laureus Awards, which recognises sporting achievements during the calendar year 2013, is the premier honours event on the international sporting calendar.

The winners, as voted by the Laureus World Sports Academy, the ultimate sports jury, made up of 46 of the greatest sportsmen and sportswomen of all time, will be unveiled at a globally televised Awards Ceremony staged in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Wednesday, March 26.

Laureus Ambassador and Malaysian squash legend Nicol David, seven times world champion expressed her excitement that the awards will be held in her home country and is confident that Kuala Lumpur will host a great Awards Ceremony.

"Everyone in my country loves sport and I can promise a really wonderful Malaysia welcome. The Laureus World Sports Awards is one of the great events of the sporting year and Laureus does amazing work around the world to help disadvantaged children," she said.

The 15th year of the Laureus World Sports Awards is being held in South East Asia for the first time thus enabling the Laureus message to be extended to a new part of the world.

Six Nominees will be announced in various categories on February 26: Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year, Laureus World Team of the Year, Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year, Laureus World Comeback of the Year, Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability and Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year. The members of the Laureus World Sports Academy will then vote by secret ballot to decide the winners.

Further details about guests who will be attending the Awards, the venue for the Awards Ceremony and the full programme of events will be announced in the coming weeks.

Among the sporting greats who have been named in the past as winners of Awards over the 15 years of Laureus have been Usain Bolt, Sebastian Coe, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Alex Ferguson, Lewis Hamilton, Kelly Holmes, Rafael Nadal, Pelé, Steve Redgrave, Ronaldo, Michael Schumacher, Kelly Slater, Shaun White, Serena Williams and Zinedine Zidane.

Guests who have attended the Laureus World Sports Awards Ceremony in the past have included His Majesty King Juan Carlos of Spain, HSH Prince Albert of Monaco, David and Victoria Beckham, Sean Connery, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Morgan Freeman, Teri Hatcher, Eva Longoria, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey.

Proceeds from the Laureus World Sports Awards directly benefit and underpin the work of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, which supports more than 140 community sports projects in 34 countries that have helped to improve the lives of over one-and-a-half million young people.

Members of the Laureus World Sports Academy volunteer their time to act as global ambassadors for the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, whose mission is to use sport as the means to combat some of the world’s toughest social challenges facing young people today such as juvenile crime, gangs, HIV/AIDS, discrimination, social exclusion, lack of education, landmines awareness and health problems such as obesity.