Emma Raducanu wins Breakthrough of the Year at 2022 Laureus Sports Awards

Emma RaducanuGetty Images

Raducanu ended Britain's 44-year wait for a women's Grand Slam singles champion with her remarkable victory at Flushing Meadows

Tennis player Emma Raducanu has won the Breakthrough of the Year award at the 2022 Laureus World Sports Awards.

The 19-year-old, a shock US Open winner last year, is one of three Britons to win awards, along with skateboarder Sky Brown and BMX rider Bethany Shriever.

Brown, who suffered a serious injury in 2020 before taking bronze at the Tokyo Olympics aged 13, took home the Comeback of the Year award.

Shriever, a Tokyo gold medallist in BMX, won the Action Sportsperson award.

Raducanu became the first tennis player to win a Grand Slam title as a qualifier when she beat Leylah Fernandez in New York in September.

Brown fractured her skull and broke bones in her arm during a training fall but became Great Britain's youngest Olympic medal winner of all time by finishing third in the park skateboarding final.

"This is insane," she said, after pipping fellow Britons, diver Tom Daley and cyclist Mark Cavendish, to the award.

"I had some ups and downs, falling, having a pretty bad accident and getting back up. I feel like the falling just pushed me [to succeed]. I'm so thankful for everything."

Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen won the Sportsman of the Year award, while the women's award was won by Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah, who took gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay in Tokyo.

Italy were named Team of the Year after winning football's European Championship, NFL superstar Tom Brady took home the lifetime award, Bayern Munich and Poland striker Robert Lewandowski was given the Exceptional Achievement award and MotoGP racer Valentino Rossi the Sporting Icon award.

Related topics