Berlin: Franz Klammer, the legendary Austrian downhill skier, is putting Winter Olympic champion gold medallist Lindsey Vonn's (USA) name forward for top honours in the hope winter sports will get more recognition at the forthcoming Laureus Sports Awards in Abu Dhabi on February 7, 2011.
Speaking at the Laureus Academy Forum in Berlin, where sports finest deliberate not only the awards but also the direction and development of the ‘Sports for Good' Foundation, working on global projects to assist those most disadvantaged through sporting programmes, Klammer said, "winter sports are under represented in my opinion."
The former 1976 Olympic gold medallist and dominating force of four consecutive World Cups from 1975-78 said, "Of course, tennis is big, everyone knows Boris Becker, but there are great athletes in winter sports that aren't getting the recognition they deserve."
In what was an obvious appeal to the 2000 journalists who put their recommendations forward before the 47 strong list of sport's living legends at the Laureus Academy, Klammer said: "There are more journalists from the summer sports who are nominating athletes from own sports they cover so we're looking forward to get more winter sport people into consideration of journalists."
The Laureus Awards has previously recognised the likes of Austria's alpine skier Hermann Maier with 2004 comeback of the year and Croatia's Janica Kastelic with 2006 sportswoman of the year but apart from that Klammer says over a period of 10 years in Laureus' existence winter sports have been ignored partly because it's a northern hemisphere niche forum.
"I hope Vonn will be nominated she's been skiing tremendous seasons not just one but last year she won the skiing world championships with golds in downhill and Super G then she won gold in downhill at the winter Olympics in Vancouver."
Klammer also gave the heads up to Swiss Carlo Janka who achieved a similar feat in Giant Slalom. But Klammer added he feared the 2011 Alpine World Skiing Championships in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany, to be held at the same time as the Laureus Awards would mean few skiers could attend the ceremony even if they were nominated.
