Winning the 2008 MotoGP championship earned Italian motorcycling champion Valentino Rossi another nomination for an 'oscar' of the sports world, handed out every year by the Laureus World Sports Academy.
The Yamaha rider, who won five MotoGP titles in a row from 2001 to 2005, was nominated for not only winning the title but also for overtaking Giacomo Agostini's long-standing career record of 68 wins in motorcycling premier class and setting a new record of 71 victories.
This is the third time the 30-year rider has been short-listed for the World Sportsman of the Year prize but the competition will be tough as Rossi is up against the fastest man in the world, runner Usain Bolt; eight-time Olympic swimming gold medalist Michael Phelps: the youngest Formula 1 2008 champion ever, Lewis Hamilton; and Manchester United and Portugal soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.
Rossi, who was also nominated for the award in 2004 and 2005, won a Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.
That same year the late Angelo D'Arrigo won the Laureus World Alternative Sportsperson of the Year prize.
The Italian naturalist and world champion hang-glider who was known as the ''Human Condor'' was killed in a small-engine plane crash two months before winning the award.
Until 2006 the only Italian to win a Laureus prize, since its conception in 2000, was driver Alex Zanardi, who in 2005 was given the World Comeback of the Year award for returning to professional auto racing after losing both legs in an horrific 2001 crash.
The Laureus World Sports Awards are the only global awards which include all sports in a total of seven categories: Sportsman of the Year; Sportswoman of the Year; Team of the Year; Newcomer of the Year; Comeback of the Year; Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability; and Alternative Sportsperson of the Year.
The winners are chosen by the Laureus Sports Academy, which is chaired by Olympic track legend Edwin Moses and consists of 46 individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to world sport.
These include Italian motorcycling legend Agostini and skiing ace Alberto Tomba.
The Laureus Academy in an international association based in London which promotes the use of sport as a tool for social change and celebrates sporting excellence.
