Laureus World Sports Awards

[MIJB#19]

The end of the year is coming and all over the globe that's the time to honor the greats of the year and/or to nominate them for that stuff.

To date I thought the Laureus World Sports Awards were supposed to be the most respected in the world of sports. Seeing today's announced nominees for World Sportsman of the Year, I'm not sure these people know what they're doing. The nominees are Usain Bolt, Dirk Nowitzki, Sebastian Vettel, Lionel Messi, Novak Djokovic and Cadel Evans. On first look, an okay list, until you dig into their respective sports.

Digging into the cycling nominee, which apparently is a big enough sport to be recognized for this all world award, Cadel Evans' nominee doesn't make a lot of sense. Evans won Le Tour de France and a couple of other pretty prestigous race. He definately had a good year. But, if you ask any cyclist follower who the best cyclist was of 2011, Evans might be in second place, but the very best he wasn't. And it ain't even close. Philippe Gilbert, former and future teammate of Evans, had the most dominating season since, well, at least my entire lifetime. There's no disrespect here for Evans' achievements, but I think even Evans himself would admit that his nominee makes no sense if Gilbert isn't in the mix.

I could buy the peaking at the biggest event in the year argument, but in that case Bolt's nomination would be at least dubious, given that at the biggest one of the year, he was disqualified.

So yes, that award lost credibility today.

/End rant.