Bolt, Biles honoured Usain Bolt

MONACO. — There’s just no stopping Usain Bolt and Simone Biles as the two athletes who dominated last year’s Rio Olympics were triumphant again at the “Oscars of Sport” in Monaco on Tuesday night.

Jamaica’s Bolt, the only man to win all three sprint events at three Olympic Games, won a record-equaling fourth Laureus World Sport award after being named Sportsman of the Year.

Tennis players Roger Federer and Serena Williams, and surfer Kelly Slater, are the only other athletes to receive four Laureus awards.

Bolt, who has said he will retire after the World Athletics Championships in August, told CNN Sport: “I’ve done what I needed to do in the sport. I feel people really appreciate what I’ve done and I’m satisfied with that.”

Bolt also said that he has no regrets about his decision to retire from athletics in 2017 as he has accomplished everything he wants to in the sport.

Bolt will hang up his spikes following the world championships in London in August, bringing the curtain down on a career that has delivered eight Olympic gold medals.

“I’ve just done everything I wanted to do in the sport,” Bolt said on the red carpet at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco.

“I asked (former US sprinter) Michael Johnson the same question, ‘why did you retire when you were on top?’. He said the same — he had done everything he had wanted to do in athletics so there was no reason to stay in the sport. Now I understand what he means.”

Bolt completed a “treble treble” of 100m, 200m and 4x100m Olympic titles at the 2016 Rio Games, but had his 2008 relay gold stripped last month after teammate Nesta Carter’s re-tested sample showed traces of a banned substance.

Carter has said he will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The 30-year-old Bolt fired his team of international “All Stars” to victory in the inaugural Nitro Athletics Series in Melbourne last week.

He ran his first individual race of the year, burning away from a modest field for an easy win in the 150m sprint.

“I just wanted to run and to be part of it,” he said. “I had to take it easy because I wasn’t at the level I would usually be. It was the first time I had competed at this time of the year.”

Bolt was nominated for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award along with back-to-back Olympic 5 000 and 10 000 metres gold medal winner Mo Farah and double Olympic tennis champion Andy Murray.

Real Madrid and Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo and basketball duo Stephen Curry and LeBron James were also shortlisted.

American teenager Biles, the first woman to win four gymnastics golds in a single Olympic Games, was Laureus Sportswoman of the Year.

“I still don’t recognise myself (in the same company as these great athletes),” the 19-year-old, who has taken a year’s sabbatical following her Rio success, told CNN Sport.

“I’m fine with the time off. I’ll begin training for Tokyo 2020 at the end of this year, the beginning of next year.”

Another American, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, won Comeback of the Year.

The 31-year-old won five gold medals in Rio after ending his retirement to compete in the pool in Brazil.

World Series champions Chicago Cubs, who last year secured their first Fall Classic in 108 years, were Team of the Year, while English Premier League champions Leicester City won a special Laureus Spirit of Sport award.

Leicester City, a team which had never won England’s top division and were 5000-1 outsiders to win the league title last season, won soccer’s richest league in what was one of sport’s unlikeliest stories.

Reigning Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg (31) took the Breakthrough of the Year award.

The German surprised the sporting world when he announced his retirement just five days after winning his first world title in November.

Elsewhere, Italy’s Beatrice Vio — the only quadruple amputee in international wheelchair fencing — was named Sportsperson of the Year with a disability and the Olympic Refugee Team received the Laureus Sport for Good award. — CNN

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