CAPE TOWN – It's been dubbed the “Oscars of sport”, and you can have a say in deciding whether South Africa’s Natalie du Toit wins a Laureus award in Berlin on Monday.
Olympian and Paralympian Du Toit was nominated for the Best Sporting Moment of the last 20 years, and she will be up against Sachin Tendulkar, Mick Schumacher, Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer club and Chinese double amputee mountaineer Xia Boyu.
It is already a remarkable achievement that Du Toit has reached the top five after two rounds of voting, which saw the contenders whittled down from 20. But she needed fans to vote in each round (laureus.com/vote), and the final round ends just before midnight on Sunday, with the Laureus Sports Awards taking place in the German capital on Monday.
The Springbok team that won the 2019 Rugby World Cup have made the list for the Team of the Year, and captain Siya Kolisi will be hoping to lift another trophy on Monday.
“Hell, imagine doing the double,” Laureus South Africa chairman and Academy member, former Springbok captain Morne du Plessis, said.
“The day that Natalie swam in the able-bodied Olympics, I mean, it’s a Siya Kolisi moment of a different form! If you think of the best sporting moments of the last 20 years, and they picked that one - and obviously we are biased as she is also an ambassador (for Laureus). She lives the ideals of Laureus.”
Olympic and paralympic swimmer Natalie Du Toit. Photo: Claro Cortes/Reuters
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The Rugby world Cup winning Springboks are up against Liverpool, Mercedes, the US women’s football team, Toronto Raptors and the Spain men’s basketball team.
“I think we’ve got a good chance. Where I pick it up in the WhatsApp group with the Academy, what mostly came across was not the (Springboks’) win, but how they celebrated the victory, and the after-match speeches in particular,” Du Plessis said.
“The Academy was blown over. I don’t know; I can only hope that we’re in with a good shout, but we will see.”
* Vote for Natalie du Toit by clicking on the link below:
* Listen to the podcast with Morné du Plessis below.
Check out the Weekend Argus on Saturday, and follow IOL Sport on Twitter and Facebook for more on the Laureus Awards, where Ashfak Mohamed will bring us the latest from Berlin.