Voting open for World Sport Star of the Year – meet the contenders

Voting is open for the BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year 2025 award.

Six contenders have been shortlisted for the award, which will be presented during the live show on BBC One on Thursday, 18 December.

The 2024 World Sport Star award was won by Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis.

Sport: Football Country: Spain

Spain midfielder Caldentey enjoyed a stellar first season in English football, with her performances instrumental in Arsenal’s march to Champions League glory, beating her former club Barcelona in the final.

After scoring 19 goals in 41 appearances for the Gunners in her first season, Caldentey was named the Professional Footballers’ Association women’s player of the year and the Women’s Super League player of the year.

Caldentey scored in the Women’s Euro 2025 final, which Spain narrowly lost to England on penalties.

Sport: Boxing Country: United States

Crawford cemented his status as one of the greatest boxers in history by becoming the first male fighter to be undisputed champion across three weight divisions in the four-belt era.

The 38-year-old had to go up two weight classes to face the great Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez at super-middleweight, but secured a unanimous decision in front of a fiercely pro-Mexican crowd in Las Vegas.

In claiming the WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO and The Ring belts, the American extended his professional record to 42 straight victories – the past 20 of which have been world title fights.

Sport: Athletics Country: Sweden

In 2025, Sweden’s Duplantis once again soared above his rivals to capture a third pole vault World Championship gold.

In doing so, he set yet another world record of 6.30m – his fourth of this year alone – and the 14th of his remarkable career.

He also retained his indoor world title – meaning he has won eight successive golds in major global competitions – and won all 16 of his events to become the first male pole vaulter in modern history to go undefeated for two successive years.

Sport: Athletics Country: United States

McLaughlin-Levrone, the greatest female 400m hurdler of all time, made the switch to the 400m flat at the World Athletics Championships this year, but the result remained the same as she became the first athlete to claim career world titles in both disciplines.

Her time of 47.78 seconds was the second fastest in history and she came close to breaking a world record that has stood since 1985.

The 26-year-old is undefeated across both distances for two years.

Sport: Baseball Country: Japan

On the LA Dodgers’ march towards retaining their World Series title, Japanese superstar Ohtani produced one of the greatest individual performances in Major League Baseball history.

The rare ‘two-way’ player, who operates as both a pitcher and a hitter, smashed three home runs and struck out 10 batters against the Milwaukee Brewers.

That made him the first pitcher since 1942 to hit three home runs in the same game.

Sport: Football Country: Egypt

Salah, the ‘Egyptian King’, scored 29 Premier League goals and broke a host of records as he helped Liverpool to a record-equalling 20th top-flight title in the 2024-25 season.

He became the first player to win the Golden Boot, the Playmaker award for most assists and the Premier League player of the season award in the same campaign. He was also named as the PFA men’s player of the year for a record third time and collected a third Football Writers’ footballer of the year award.

The 33-year-old became the highest-scoring overseas player in Premier League history, overtaking Sergio Aguero’s mark of 184.