On the global stage – Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Nominees
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Each of our six Nominees for the Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award won a global title in 2025 – only one can add a Laureus to their legend.
For over a quarter of a century, the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award has celebrated the elite achievement of athletes who have not only outshone their rivals in the sporting arena but changed the way those achievements are viewed by fans all over the world. They are role models. But they are also competitors. They are inspirational. But they are also awesome.
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Our six Nominees this year are immoveable at the summit of their sports: each won a global title during 2025, and for each of them it was not their first time at the top of the mountain. The shortlist for this Award is selected by a specialist panel from the International Paralympic Committee. The winner of the coveted Laureus statuette? That’s a decision for the Laureus World Sports Academy – and it’s going to be a tough one.
They call Gabriel Araújo ‘Rocketman’ and at the World Para Swimming Championships, the 23-year-old Brazilian swam as if he had the benefit of external propulsion. Araújo won the same three titles in Singapore as he did at the Paris Paralympics and the two previous editions of the world championships: 200m freestyle, 100m and 50m backstroke (all in the S2 category). He also broke his own world record for the S2 150m individual medley while racing in the S3 final. Araújo returned home as a nine-time world champion to go along with five Paralympic golds.
They call Gabriel Araújo ‘Rocketman’ and at the World Para Swimming Championships, the 23-year-old Brazilian swam as if he had the benefit of external propulsion. Araújo won the same three titles in Singapore as he did at the Paris Paralympics and the two previous editions of the world championships: 200m freestyle, 100m and 50m backstroke (all in the S2 category). He also broke his own world record for the S2 150m individual medley while racing in the S3 final. Araújo returned home as a nine-time world champion to go along with five Paralympic golds.
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Araújo wasn’t the only athlete to achieve multiple titles in Singapore. Simone Barlaam was nominated for the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award in 2024 and across three days at the World Para Swimming Championships he added four more gold medals to take his total to 23. The S9 athlete won in the 100m butterfly and both the 50m and 100m freestyle, but it was in the 400m freestyle that Barlaam claimed victory in one of the most memorable races of the meet: a tense four-minute duel with Spain’s Jacobo Garrido Brun. The Spaniard was narrowly ahead before the final 50m length, when a final sprint from Barlaam gave him gold by three tenths of a second.
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Our third Nominee from the pool in Singapore is David Kratochvíl, for whom the World Para Swimming Championships were an announcement of a major talent. Seven races, seven medals – four of them gold. The Czech S11 swimmer, 17 years old at the time of the championships, won in the 50m, 100m and 400m freestyle events and in the 100m butterfly. The 400m freestyle is Kratochvíl’s signature event – he was the reigning Olympic and world champion going into the 2025 meet – and he broke a 33-year-old world record as he won by 17 seconds.
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A 13-year-old record was in Kiara Rodríguez’s sights at the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships – and a hat-trick of golds added to her profile as one of Para athletics’ brightest young talents. The Ecuadorian T47 long jumper and sprint star retained her 100m title and added a first 200m gold. The 23-year-old’s highlight performance, though, came in the long jump final. None of her competitors could get close to her championship record-breaking 6.29m jump. Rodriguez climbed to the top of the long jump podium for the fourth-consecutive time and remains undefeated in the event on this stage.
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Catherine Debrunner was the winner of the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award in 2023 and nominated again last year. Five gold medals from the World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi make her case for this year’s Awards. The T53/54 athlete’s incredible range is illustrated by the events in which she won: from the endurance of the 5000m down to the sprint power required for the 100m, the only distance over which she had never won gold at either World Championships or Olympic level. Debrunner won the ‘Best Female Summer Sports Award’ at the 2025 Para Sport Awards.
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While our other Nominees shone at global events that have become established in the sporting calendar, Kelsey DiClaudio made her mark on a new stage. At the inaugural World Para Ice Hockey Women’s World Championships in Slovakia, there was no doubt who the individual star of this team sport was. DiClaudio – who spent time training with the US Men’s National Development Sled Hockey Team – scored 11 goals across the tournament, including four in the final as the USA beat Canada 7-1 and their star forward left with the award for the tournament’s MVP (Most Valuable Player).
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They spent 2025 seeing off the best that their events had to offer, but for the ultimate prize in sports, these superstars of the track, the pool and the ice are up against each other.
