Our experts have put their heads together to create a six-man shortlist for Sport360’s 2016 International Sportsman of the Year.
In contention this year are Cristiano Ronaldo, Usain Bolt, LeBron James, Virat Kohli, Andy Murray and Michael Phelps.
You can VOTE BELOW for your winner, and in the coming days also vote in other international and regional categories.
It is an all-out celebration of the great and the good of the sporting world over the past 12 months and the outcome is IN YOUR HANDS!
Have your say on our nominees by using #360awards on Twitter and remind yourselves of our 2015 award winners here.
On Tuesday we’ll reveal our international female sportspeople of the year, followed by team and then regional selections.
CRISTIANO RONALDO
Given the gaudy numbers he puts up every season, Ronaldo’s individual achievements tends to be measured in goals and assists but in 2016, he shone by being an integral part of two incredibly successful teams.
He scored 16 goals in 12 Champions League games as Real Madrid won their 11th European crown and six weeks later was collecting the European Championship trophy in Paris for Portugal’s first major international triumph.
By his own ridiculous standards, it wasn’t maybe Ronaldo’s greatest season in terms of his own performances but as a team-mate, it certainly was.
USAIN BOLT
The Olympics and, more specifically, athletics itself will be a poorer place after the Jamaican sprint king bowed out of international competition by completing the ‘treble-treble’ of 100m, 200m and 4x100m gold in Rio.
It’s a feat that is difficult to envisage ever being achieved again, especially in sprinting when the window of an athlete’s supposed peak years is so slim.
No individual has had a greater impact on their chosen sport this century, perhaps ever, and we will all miss him as much as Bolt himself will miss gliding past that finish line.
MICHAEL PHELPS
Swimmers are either finished or retired by the time they get to their late 20s, the competition has caught up and reaction-times and fitness are rarely what they were when a competitor is in their late teens and early 20s.
Phelps not only rewrites record books, he does the same with common wisdom. At the age of 31, the ‘Baltimore Bullet’ returned to the Olympic pool to win another five gold medals and further his status as the most decorated Olympian of all time with a mind-boggling 28 medals – including 23 golds – dating back to Athens 2004.
A man who has totally defined the sport of swimming in the 21st century.
VIRAT KOHLI
Once thought too temperamental to be truly world class, Kohli is now the premier batsman in the world after some stellar individual displays plus captaining India to Test series victories over England, West Indies and New Zealand.
Scoring 2,580 runs in Test, ODI and T20 cricket at an average of 88.96 with seven centuries and 13 half centuries is remarkable enough, but to further illustrate his phenomenal 12 months, it represents almost 20 per cent of his total career international runs.
LEBRON JAMES
Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry may have put up some historic numbers en route to winning the NBA MVP, but ‘King James’ knew he was only watching the throne as he produced one of the greatest individual performances in an NBA finals – more so than Bird, Jordan, Kobe – to win a first ever Championship for the Cavaliers, and a first major sports trophy for his city of Cleveland since 1964.
It was achieved by overcoming the most successful regular season team in history, with the Warriors entering the Finals after a record 73 wins but LeBron showed why he’s the biggest of big game players and the best basketball player on the planet.
Down 3-1, LeBron led the Cavs to win four games on the spin to fulfil the promise he made to Cleveland when he returned to the team in 2014 after such a messy divorce four years earlier. As good as it gets.
ANDY MURRAY
Murray has always been the ugly duckling of tennis’ ‘Big Four’; lacking the finesse of Federer, the power and intensity of Nadal or the relentless and almost robotic consistency of Djokovic.
The Scot will always contend but was never thought to possess the necessary mental strength to truly join that elite trio.
This was the year that was all put to rest as, admittedly with Federer and Nadal suffering injury-plagued years, Murray just kept on winning. From Roland Garros he made up more than 8,000 points to overtake the Serb in the world rankings, losing just three matches and claiming an outstanding eights titles, including Wimbledon, the Olympics and the ATP Tour Finals.
