Laureus World Sports Awards of the year

SPORT: Athletics BORN: August 21, 1986 RESIDENCE: Jamaica Regarded by many as the greatest sprinter of all time, he is the first athlete to hold both 100 metres and 200 metres world records since electronic timing was introduced SPORT: Adventure BORN: April 20, 1969 RESIDENCE: Austria Austria’s Felix Baumgartner became the first skydiver to go faster than the speed of sound when he jumped out of a balloon from a height of 128,100 ft (24 miles / 39 km) above New Mexico. SPORT: Athletics BORN: 28 January, 1986 RESIDENCE: United Kingdom Jessica Ennis became the hope of the British nation and the talisman of the British athletics team at the London Olympics. SPORT: Swimming BORN: May 24, 1988 RESIDENCE: Brazil Four years earlier in Beijing, he had won four gold medals, four silver and a bronze, a feat which earned him the 2009 Laureus Disability Award. Still just 24, he will be one of the home favourites to win more gold medals when the 2016 Paralympic Games are held in Rio de Janeiro SPORT: Tennis BORN: May 15, 1987 RESIDENCE: United Kingdom In a spectacular second half of the year, Andy Murray, after years of trying, finally made his own personal breakthrough, winning the US Open, his first ever Grand Slam event, and also a gold and silver medal at the London Olympic Games. SPORT: Golf RESIDENCE: Europe The United States needed only 4½ points from 12 singles matches to win, but it was the Europeans who won eight matches and halved another to secure a historic 14½-13½ win SPORT: Athletics BORN: August 30, 1977 RESIDENCE: Domenican Republic Two weeks before his 35th birthday, Felix Sanchez amazingly won the 400 metres hurdles gold medal in London, repeating his achievement in Athens in 2004. RESIDENCE: United Kingdom Following the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to London, Coe, who had headed the London campaign, became chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, charged with overseeing the staging of the Games. SPORT: Swimming BORN: June 30, 1985 RESIDENCE: United States In 2012 American swimmer Michael Phelps, became the most decorated Olympian of all time.