The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards in association with Citi, recognises and celebrates the outstanding contribution made to sport by women at all levels, from elite to grassroots and community-wide.

 

Returning for the 38th year, The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year celebrates women’s sport in all steps of the pyramid. From the grassroots champions who encourage women and girls into sport to those at the top of their game, proudly raising the flag for Great Britain and opening doors for more women to follow, the awards recognises and honours all.

 

A public vote chooses the winners of the Grassroots Award, Sure Sporting in Schools Changemaker Award, and Team of the Year Award, with the remaining accolades awarded by an incredible cast of expert judges comprising of Olympians and Paralympians, world record breakers, sporting legends and broadcasting experts.

 

The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year 2024 judges are;

 

Rebecca Adlington OBE

In 2008, Adlington became the first British swimmer to win two gold medals at the Olympics for a hundred years. She has competed in four Olympic finals over two Games, and won two gold and two bronze medals. Since retiring in 2013, she has joined the BBC punditry team for the Rio Olympics and the World Championships, among others.

 

Maggie Alphonsi MBE 

Alphonsi won the Rugby World Cup with England in 2014 and triumphed in seven consecutive Six Nations titles, picking up 74 caps for England. She was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016 and won the Sunday Times sportswoman of the year in 2010. Since her retirement in 2014, she has been one of the country’s leading pundits across several broadcasters.

 

Kait Borsay 

Borsay presents the evening slot on Times Radio from Monday to Thursday and has worked for Sky News and Channel 4. She is the co-founder of the football podcast The Offside Rule and began her career in sports journalism at Sky Sports. 

 

Baroness Karren Brady CBE

Brady is vice-chair of West Ham United and one of the country’s most-respected female business leaders. She became managing director of Birmingham City in 1993 aged 23 and having turned the club around and sold it in 2009, she joined the West Ham board in 2010. She is a star of The Apprentice and was made a life peer in 2014.

 

Stuart Broad CBE 

One of England’s greatest bowlers, Broad played 167 Tests for England, taking 604 wickets – the fifth-highest by any bowler in history. Having retired after a stunning win against Australia at the Oval last year, he is now a pundit for Sky Sports.

 

Mark Bullingham 

Bullingham has been the FA’s chief executive since 2019, having joined the organisation as commercial director in 2016. 

 

Karen Carney OBE

Former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder Carney played 144 times for England during a stellar career for club and country. Since her retirement from playing in 2019, Carney has worked as a television pundit for both Sky Sports and ITV.  She led a women’s football review for the government, with her 126-page report having been published last summer.

 

Annabel Croft 

Croft is one of the country’s leading radio and television tennis presenters and pundits, playing a key role in the BBC’s coverage of Wimbledon as well as working for Eurosport and Sky – plus writing a tennis column for The Times. As a professional tennis player, Croft won the Wimbledon and Australian Open girls’ titles and broke into the world’s top 25 before retiring aged 21. 

 

Jill Douglas MBE 

Douglas is one of the country’s most respected sports broadcasters across a variety of channels and sports. She was as key part of the BBC’s Olympics coverage and was a presenter on ITV’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup last year. She is a patron and former chief executive of the charity set up by the late Scotland international Doddie Weir.

 

Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill DBE

Ennis-Hill stole the nation’s heart in the 2012 Olympics, when she won gold in the heptathlon on Super Saturday. Since then, she has become a three-time world champion, two-time winner of Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year Award and has been made a Dame in 2017.

 

Barney Francis 

Francis has spent more than 25 years in broadcasting and content, with two decades at Sky, plus spells at the BBC and ITV. He became managing director of Sky Sports in 2009. In November 2021, Barney joined IMG as executive vice president, head of global production, looking after a portfolio that included Premier League Productions, the EFL, European Tour golf, the Ryder Cup and The Open.

 

Dame Katherine Grainger 

Grainger won rowing medals at five consecutive Olympic games, including gold at London 2012. She has been chair of UK Sport since July 2017, the same year she was made a Dame.

 

Tanni Grey-Thompson DBE

One of Britain’s greatest ever paralympic athletes and wheelchair racers, Grey-Thompson has won 11 Olympic gold medals and four gold world championships medals. Since retiring she has served as a board member for the London Marathon, as well as sitting in the House of Lords.

 

Eddie Hearn 

One of the country’s leading sports promoters, Hearn has been chairman of Matchroom Sport, where his stable of boxers includes Anthony Joshua and Katie Taylor. He also presents the BBC podcast No Passion, No Point.

 

Dame Denise Lewis DBE

Lewis inspired a whole line of British heptathletes with her bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympics and gold medal four years later in Sydney in 2000. She was named Sunday Times sportswoman of the year a record three times, in 1994, 1998 and 2000 and having been one of the BBC’s leading athletics pundits, she is now president of UK Athletics. She was made a Dame in the 2023 New Year honours list.

 

Gabby Logan

Logan is one of the UK’s leading broadcasters. A former international gymnast, she began her broadcasting career in radio in 1992 and joined Sky Sports in 1996. She joined the BBC in 2007 and has presented programmes including Final Score, Inside Sport, Match of the Day and coverage of the Six Nations. She has covered the Olympics since 2008, including presenting the athletics in Paris. She has recently launched her chart-topping Podcast series ‘The Midpoint’ and ‘The Sports Agents’ with Mark Chapman. 

 

Megan Nicholls

As daughter of 14-time British champion jump trainer Paul Nicholls, Nicholls rode more than 100 winners during a seven-year career before retiring in 2002, aged 25, to pursue a career in the media. She is a key part of the ITV Racing team for all the big racing festivals on the jumps and the flat. She won the Horserace Writers and Photographers award for emerging talent in 2023. 

 

Eleanor Oldroyd 

A giant of sports broadcasting, Oldroyd has worked on BBC Radio since 1986 and joined BBC Radio 5, now 5 Live, in 1991. She has presented from almost all the world’s biggest sporting events and commentated on the Queen’s funeral and the coronation of King Charles across BBC radio. 

 

Jasmin Paris MBE 

Paris became the first woman to complete one of the world’s toughest races, the 100-mile Barkley Marathons in Tennessee in March, finishing just 99 seconds within the 60-hour time limit. The ultramarathon runner has previously won bronze at the 2016 Skyrunning World Championships and beat the previous best time (for both men and women) for the Spine Race, run along the Pennine Way, by 12 hours in 2019. 

 

Natalie Pinkham 

Pinkham has been a key member of the Sky Sports F1 team since 2012. She is a respected advocate and lobbyist for online safety, mental health and wellbeing and is a founder of the annual one-day music festival Flackstock in memory of her friend Caroline Flack. She is a patron of the charity Hope & Homes for Children and co-founder of the YRDS agency. 

 

Lianne Sanderson 

Former Arsenal and Chelsea footballer Sanderson won 50 caps for England after making her debut for her country in 2006. The former Lioness striker is now a key part of talkSPORT’s women’s football coverage as co-commentator on England internationals, including at last summer’s World Cup. She also presents The Women’s Football Show on talkSPORT 2.