Contenders Revealed for BBC Sports Personality’s World Sport Star of the Year 2024

The voting period has concluded for the BBC Sports Personality’s World Sport Star of the Year 2024 award. Six individuals have been selected as finalists for this accolade, which is scheduled to be presented live on BBC One on Tuesday, December 17. In 2023, the World Sport Star award was claimed by Manchester City footballer Erling Haaland. **Sport:** Gymnastics **Country:** United States Simone Biles, three years after experiencing the ‘twisties’ – a disorientating mental block that caused her withdrawal from multiple events at the Tokyo Olympics – demonstrated her peak performance at this summer’s Games in Paris. Biles, recognized as the world’s most decorated gymnast, secured three gold medals in the all-around, vault, and team events, in addition to a silver medal in the floor exercise. At 27 years old, she became the oldest gymnast in 72 years to win the women’s all-around title in a competition where the preceding 12 Olympic champions were all teenagers. Her current Olympic medal count stands at 11, complementing the 30 medals she has earned at World Championship level. **Sport:** Basketball **Country:** United States Caitlin Clark was chosen as the first overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever. During her inaugural season, she established new regular-season records for assists (337), points scored by a rookie (769), and three-pointers made by a rookie (122). Earlier in 2024, playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes, she became the all-time leading scorer in both men’s and women’s college basketball, accumulating 3,951 points and surpassing Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old record. Additionally, in her final college season, she achieved an NCAA record of 201 three-pointers. The 22-year-old’s athletic achievements contributed to unprecedented viewing figures in the United States, with 18.9 million viewers tuning in for this season’s NCAA final. **Sport:** Para-athletics **Country:** Switzerland Wheelchair racer Catherine Debrunner secured an impressive five gold medals at the Paris Paralympics, competing in various distances ranging from 400m to the marathon. She also earned a silver medal in the 100m, bringing her total Paralympic medal count to eight across two Games. Earlier in the year, Debrunner, aged 29 and a five-time world champion, claimed victory in the London Marathon for the second time, successfully defended her Berlin Marathon title, and subsequently broke her own course record in Chicago, thereby securing her second consecutive Abbott World Marathon Majors series title. **Sport:** Athletics **Country:** Sweden Armand Duplantis, widely known as Mondo, is considered the greatest pole vaulter in history and experienced another year of record-breaking achievements in 2024. The 25-year-old successfully defended his Olympic title in Paris, marking him as the first consecutive Olympic champion in men’s pole vault since the 1950s. During this performance, he surpassed both the Olympic record and the world record; this marked his ninth career world record break and his second of the year. He further improved the world record in August, achieving a new best of 6.26m at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia. Additionally, Duplantis secured a second world indoor title and a third European gold medal in 2024. **Sport:** Athletics **Country:** Netherlands Sifan Hassan, who previously earned three Olympic medals at Tokyo 2020, achieved another trio of medals at the Paris Games this summer. The 31-year-old first secured a bronze medal in the 5,000m, followed by another bronze in the 10,000m. She then claimed the Olympic marathon gold on the concluding day of the Games, out-sprinting Ethiopian world record holder Tigst Assefa by three seconds to establish a new Olympic best time of two hours, 22 minutes, and 55 seconds. By adding the marathon to her 5,000m and 10,000m titles from Tokyo, Hassan became the first woman to win Olympic gold in all three events, and the first athlete, regardless of gender, since 1952 to earn a medal in these three specific races at a single Olympic Games. **Sport:** Swimming **Country:** France Léon Marchand solidified his status as a global swimming sensation in 2024 by earning four gold medals at his home Olympics in Paris. The 22-year-old, a five-time world champion, first triumphed in the 400m individual medley. He then accomplished the notable achievement of winning gold in both the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke within a two-hour period, setting new Olympic record times in both events. Marchand, frequently likened to the esteemed American swimmer Michael Phelps, secured his fourth gold medal in the 200m individual medley, making him the first French athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games. He also contributed to his country’s bronze medal in the 4x100m medley relay.