Oviedo (EFE)
This award is intended to distinguish the trajectories that, through the promotion, development and improvement of sport and through solidarity and commitment, have become an example of the possibilities that sports practice entails for the benefit of human beings.
Last year, the award went to the Olympic Refugee Foundation and the Refugee Olympic Team, created by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for the opportunity it provides athletes in conflict zones and places where human rights are violated to carry out their sports and personal activities.
In previous editions, the American skier Lindsey Vonn; the New Zealand men’s rugby team, known as the All Blacks; the triathlete Javier Gómez Noya; the brothers and basketball players Pau and Marc Gasol; the New York Marathon; the Spanish soccer team; the tennis player Rafa Nadal or the Formula One drivers Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, among others.
The one for Sports will be the fourth of the eight awards convened annually by the Princess of Asturias Foundation to fail, after the one for the Arts has been awarded to the American actress Meryl Streep; that of Communication and Humanities to the Italian philosopher Nuccio Ordine, and that of Social Sciences, to the French historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse.
Thus, the awards for Literature (May 24), International Cooperation (June 1), Scientific and Technical Research (June 7) and Concord (June 14) will still be pending.