Simone Biles, Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz thrill to sight of Kelly Slater being inducted into the Pantheon of sport's greats.
A wildly star-packed audience in Madrid has thrilled to the sight of Kelly Slater getting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th anniversary of the Laureus Awards.
The ceremony, which had sports icons Rafael Nadal, Simone Biles, and Carlos Alcaraz in the crowd, also saw Nadal receive the Sporting Icon Award, Simone got the Sportsgal of the Year and pole-vaulter Mondo Duplantis won the men’s.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is a semi-regular accolade given to athletes who’ve made extraordinary contributions to their sport, transcending competition to impact its culture, development, or global reach. It is not awarded annually, making it a rare and highly selective honor.
An aside.
BeachGrit’s tour correspondent JP Currie ain’t in the Slater-GOAT camp.
When we talk about those who are worthy of being called the GOAT, we should be talking about people whose sporting performances have transcended sport. We should be talking about figures who are globally recognised and historically remembered, people who are idolised by children and worthy of that status.
What has Kelly done for the world? What has surfing?
How do you compare his impact to Muhammed Ali, for example?
You could argue we should ignore everything Kelly has done and said outside of surfing, but I don’t think we should.
At the highest level of sport, the kind of level reserved for people dubbed GOATs, sport influences culture, brings people hope, and instigates change.
Anyway.
Winners are chosen by the Laureus World Sports Academy, a group of 69 retired sporting legends (e.g., Boris Becker, Nadia Comaneci) who vote by secret ballot. The Academy ensures selections are merit-based, free from fan-driven popularity biases.
Recipients receive a Cartier-crafted Laureus statuette, 30 cm tall, weighing 2.5 kg, with 670 g of solid silver and 650 g of gold in the base, symbolising victory across five continents
Since 2000, only 14 individuals have received this award, including Pelé (2000), Steve Redgrave (2001), Billie Jean King (2021), and Tom Brady (2022).
At the ceremony Kelly Slater said,
“As a little kid, I wasn’t sure if people in my area where I was from in Florida could win a world title… and now I look back, and in our sport, we have 22 world titles from my state.”
Slater, who is fifty-three, spoke of the honor of being voted by a committee of athletes, saying, “This is really based on merit and objective order that you’ve done at some point in your career.”
Slater’s Madrid trip included watching a Real Madrid game at Santiago Bernabéu, where he was gifted a jersey by club president Florentino Pérez.
