The 2026 Laureus Award nominees have been announced, and several swimmers are among the mix of elite international stars set to be honored on April 20th in Madrid, Spain.
13-year-old Chinese phenom Yu Zidi is one of the athletes vying for the ‘World Breakthrough of the Year’ category after her head-turning performances at the 2025 World Championships.
As a 12-year-old there in Singapore, Yu placed 4th in the 200 fly, clocking 2:06.43 to miss the podium by just 32 one-hundredths of a second, while in the 200 IM, her time of 2:09.21 in the final earned her 4th and saw her finish just six one-hundredths shy of bronze.
On the last day of the meet in the women’s 400 IM, Yu picked up her third 4th-place finish of the meet, setting a new best time of 4:33.76 to finish half-a-second off the podium.
In addition to her individual performances, Yu also swam the lead-off leg of the Chinese women’s 4×200 free relay in the prelims, clocking 1:59.28, and then the team went on to win bronze in the final. That made the Yu the youngest swimmer ever to win a medal at the World Championships, having already become the youngest to reach a final when she did so at the beginning of the meet in the 200 IM.
The other nominees for ‘World Breakthrough of the Year’ include French footballer Desire Doue, Brazilian tennis ace Joao Fonseca, Canadian basketball athlete Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, British darts player Luke Littler and British racecar driver Lando Norris.
But Yu isn’t the only aquatic athlete to have been nominated in one of the seven Laureus Award categories. American Olympic icon Katie Ledecky is in the running for ‘Sportswoman of the Year’, while Gabriel Araujo (BRA), Simone Barlaam (ITA) and David Kratochvil (CZE) are vying for ‘Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability.’
Retired American Olympic champion Missy Franklin was the youngest-ever individual Laureus World Sports Award winner after being named ‘World Sportswoman of the Year’ in 2014 at the age of 18. Yu is now the youngest-ever athlete to have been nominated.
The Laureus Awards are determined by votes from more than 1,000 sports media from over 70 countries.
The Laureus Awards have proven to be irrelevant.
Summer wasn’t even nominated for Sportswoman of the Year, which is just completely absurd.