Kenyan Athlete Eliud Kipchoge Nominated for Sportsman of the Year Award

Sport24 reports that Kenyan athlete and marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge has been nominated for Sportsman of the Year in the 2020 Laureus World Sports Awards.

He's made the prestigious nominations list alongside Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton andRafael Nadal.

Kipchoge's nomination comes barely a month after he won the World Athletics Athlete of 2019 award. With the athlete's consistently impressive performance last year, and having won 11 of the 12 marathons he's ever entered, these accolades come as no surprise.

After winning the London Marathon in April of last year, the 35-year-old Olympic champion became the first athlete ever to finish a marathon in under two hours with a time of 1 hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds.

According to the website of the Laureus World Sports Awards, the event is described as an "annual event [that] honours the greatest and most inspirational sporting triumphs of the year and showcases the work of Laureus Sport for Good."

South Africa's national rugby team, the Springboks, has also been nominated an award in the category of Team of the Year. This comes after the team thrashed England 32-12 in last year's Rugby World Cup and brought home the win—the third victory in their history at the tournament. They will be competing with Liverpool FC, the Toronto Raptors, the USA Women's World Cup team, Spain's men's basketball team and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team.

The Laureus World Sports Awards ceremony will be held in Berlin, Germany in February 17.