Marcel Hug has been awarded the massively prestigious 2018 Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability! The Laureus awards ceremony took place on February 17 in Monaco. The annual event celebrates top sports men and women from across the globe. The 32-year old Paralympian athlete from Switzerland won one of the 12 awards presented at the event.
Nicknamed “silver bullet”, Hug has stunned sports fans in his T54 wheelchair racing career. He has won seven Paralympic gold medals, set four world records and dominated in marathons. The Paralympian made a splash from an early age, winning two bronze medals at the 2004 Summer Paralympics.
He was named the 2004 Newcomer of the Year Credit Suisse Sports Award and then, in 2006, competed at the IPC Athletics World Championship, winning his first international gold medal in the men’s 10 000 m T54 wheelchair race. During a meet in Switzerland in June 2010, Hug set four new world records in the T54 wheelchair race: the 800 m (1:31.12); 1 500 m (2:54.51); 5 000 m (9:53.05); and 10 000 m (19:50.04).
By 2011, Hug would claim his second international gold medal at the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championship. He once again dominated in the 10 000 m wheelchair race. In the same year, Hug won his first major city marathon at the 2011 Berlin Marathon – a title he retained the following year.
He went on to win five gold medals at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France, and took the title at his fourth New York Marathon and the London Marathon.
Hug won his first Boston Marathon title in 2015 and followed it up in 2016,, the year in which he also won his second London Marathon. Hug won his first Paralympic gold medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
Find more about the other sports people of the year on the Laureus World Sports Award website here: https://awards.laureus.com/winners/
