The inaugural winner of the award was the Spanish golfer Sergio García. During his debut season as a professional, the 19-year-old finished one stroke behind Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship and became the youngest player to gain selection for Team Europe for the Ryder Cup. , the award has been won by a different individual sportsperson every year (four to women, sixteen to men), although eight teams have been nominated – Ghana men's national football team (2007), VfL Wolfsburg (2010), Afghanistan men's national cricket team (2014), Switzerland Davis Cup team (2015), Chile men's national football team (2016), Fiji national rugby sevens team (2017), Iceland national football team (2017) and Leicester City F.C. (2017). British and Spanish sportspeople have won more awards than any other nationality with four, followed by Americans, Germans and Chinese with two. Golfers are the most successful overall with six wins followed by Formula One drivers with five. The winner in 2017 was the German Formula One driver Nico Rosberg. Having beaten teammate Lewis Hamilton to the 2016 World Championship title by five points, Rosberg announced his retirement from the sport five days later, two months prior to collecting his Laureus statuette. The 2021 winner of the Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year was the American footballer Patrick Mahomes.