A prize that would not go to the athlete of the year, but would be much more…

The announcements for the 2025 Nobel Prizes are coming thick and fast. Yesterday it was the turn of the Literature Prize: Hungarian László Krasznahorkai. They will receive the prestigious award in Stockholm on December 10, the date of the death of Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, who had the unique privilege of reading his own obituary. Upon the death of his brother Ludvig, some French newspapers mistakenly announced the death of Alfred, who “had made his fortune by finding a way to kill as many people as possible in the shortest possible time.” Frightened by the idea of going down in history as an exterminator, Nobel linked his name to the prize awarded each year to those who have rendered “the greatest services to humanity” in the fields of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature, economics, and peace.
Would it be so absurd to add a Nobel Prize for Sport, which is culture, language, and has taken on an increasingly important social role? Sport is not society’s playground, it is society. It would not be the athlete of the year, much more than that. A Nobel sportsman should be a competitive excellence who has also had an impact on civil life: Bartali, Muhammad Ali, the Iranian soccer players… Or a sportsman who has become an icon of his discipline (Pelé, Jordan…) or who has changed its history with inventions (Fosbury, Sacchi…) or battles (Bosman). Nobel Prize for Sport 2025? A champion of inclusion. No one has been as iconic as Pogacar and Duplantis. Why not Sinner, long king of the world, who brought tennis into the era of dynamite, so dear to Alfred Nobel?