Usain Bolt wins BBC Overseas Personality of the Year Award and in running for TIME's Person of the Year Award

The most recent recipient of the BBC’s Overseas Personality Award is Usain Bolt, who broke both the 100m and 200m world records at the Summer Olympics and broke them both again at the 2009 World Championships. He won this award last year as well.


Usain Bolt celebrates winning the gold medal in the men's 100m with a world record of 9.58 seconds at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Berlin.
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Bolt told BBC:

"It is an honor to win this prestigious award again.”

Adding

“Hopefully I can break the record and win it three or four years in a row.”

The other contender for this year’s award was tennis superstar Roger Federer.

Sidebar: Bolt is also in the running for TIME Magazine's Person Of The Year 2009. You can vote for him HERE. So far he is # four with Iran Protesters at the top of the list followed by Barack Obama (last year's winner) and Steve Jobs of Apple Inc.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Overseas Personality Award was first presented in 1960, six years after the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award was introduced. The first recipient of the award was Australian middle distance runner Herb Elliott. Since then, the award has been presented to 47 sports persons. American boxer Muhammad Ali and Swiss tennis player Roger Federer have each won the award three times and Australian golfer Greg Norman has won the award twice. The award has been shared on three occasions-by Ron Clarke and Gary Player in 1965, Eusebio and Garfield Sobers in 1966, and Evander Holyfield and Michael Johnson in 1996. The husband and wife skating duo of Oleg Protopopov and Ludmila Belousova are the only pair to have won the award, doing so in 1968. Belousova was the first and oldest woman to become Overseas Personality. George Moore is the oldest recipient of the award, winning in 1967 at age 44. The youngest recipient of the award is Nadia Comaneci, who won in 1976 at age 16. Boris Becker was 18 when he won in 1985, making him the youngest recipient thus far. Twenty different countries have been represented by the award winners. United States has the most awards (19). Two west Indies cricketers –Garfield Sobers of Barbados and Brian Lara of Trinidad have won. Thirteen sports have been represented with tennis having the most awards (14)

Find out more about this award by clicking HERE