Alexia Putellas and Jon Rahm receive this Tuesday the National Awards as the Best Athletes in 2021

The King and Queen and the Minister of Culture preside over the ceremony at the El Pardo Palace

MADRID, 17 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The FC Barcelona soccer player Alexia Putellas, double Ballon d’Or, and the golfer Jon Rahm, recent winner of the Augusta Masters, will receive the Queen Letizia and King Felipe awards this Tuesday as the best Spanish athletes of 2021 at the Awards ceremony Sports Nationals at the Royal Palace of El Pardo (Madrid).

Said act, presided over by Their Majesties the King and Queen, Felipe VI and Letizia Ortiz, and the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, will recognize the people and entities that have distinguished themselves the most in the competition or in the promotion of sport during the past 2021.

The FC Barcelona midfielder will thus see her great 2021 recognized, in which she won the historic Champions League title with her team, the first for Spanish women’s football, and, on an individual level, the Ballon d’Or and The Best of FIFA corresponding to the 2021-22 season, achievements that no other Spanish had either.

For his part, the player from Barrika, the fourth Spaniard to have won the ‘green jacket’ in Augusta after Severiano Ballesteros, José María Olazábal and Sergio García, excelled in 2021, in which he won his first ‘major’, the US Open, and also rose to first place in the world ranking.

The King Juan Carlos award for the best revelation athlete will be collected by climber Alberto Ginés, the first Olympic champion in the combined event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, while another silver medalist in the Japanese capital, taekwondo athlete Adriana Cerezo will receive the Princesa Leonor, for the best athlete under 18 years of age.

The Venezuelan athlete Yulimar Rojas, gold medalist in Tokyo and world record holder in the triple jump, will win the Ibero-American Community Trophy, and the shooters Fátima Gálvez and Alberto Fernández, the Barón de Güell Cup, which distinguishes the best team or selection, for its Olympic gold in the mixed modality of pit in Tokyo 2020.

The jury of the National Sports Awards will also recognize organizations and institutions for their promotion of sport and physical activity, such as the Instituto Navarro del Deporte, awarded the Reina Sofía for its projects in favor of fair play and the eradication of any type of violence in sport, such as the mediation office, the online training platform and its collaboration on equality, LGTBI and migration with different institutions.

The National Hospital for Paraplegics of Toledo, reference center
in the treatment of people with spinal cord injury, will be recognized with the Infanta Sofía award, dedicated to promoting sports for people with disabilities, and the Real Grupo de Cultura Covadonga, with the Stadium Cup, for its promotion of sport, especially grassroots.

The Higher Sports Council Award, for the Spanish town that has stood out for its promotion of sport and physical activity, will go to the Murcian municipality of Águilas, while the IES Hermenegildo Lanz (Granada), the first center of educational and sports excellence de Andalucía with a project aimed at high-performance athletes, will have the Joaquín Blume Trophy, which distinguishes the educational center that stands out for promoting physical activity.

Finally, Podactiva will be awarded the National Award for Arts and Sciences Applied to Sports, and Conrado Durántez, president of the Spanish Olympic Academy, with the Francisco Fernández Ochoa award for a lifetime dedicated to practicing, organizing, directing, promoting and sport development.

The CSD received more than 150 nominations for this 2021 edition of the National Sports Awards, a figure never before reached in the course of these awards, which have been awarded since 1982.

The jury is made up of representatives of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE), the Fundación Deporte Joven, the ADO programme, high-level athletes, sports federations, professional competitions, Autonomous Communities, the sports press and the sports industry.