1. Alejandro Valverde (Spain) – Cycling - Movistar Team
As a generation of Spain’s golden cyclists retire, the public would be allowed to presume Alejandro would be winding down after a busy career. But that public wouldn’t know cycling, or Spanish cycling and definitely wouldn’t know Valverde’s character – he’s not a quitter. Despite suffering a broken leg in the opening stage of the 2017 Tour de France at age 37, he burst back onto the scene in 2018, winning no less than 13 professional races (2 Vuelta stages), securing 5 second places and 3 third places (two in Grand Tour stages) before he even reached the World Championships. These results would rival any successful career, let alone a year. In the World Championships, the international field was whittled down by the tough terrain and nobody could beat him – his World Championship win alone, aged 38, would be apt reason for ranking in this list, but with the year, and career, he has had, there’s nobody to match him.
2. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (Mexico) - Boxing
Canelo is already bigger than boxing in many regards, after all he is known by his singular nickname, dates A-list celebrities, paid a visit to the Pope and has the country of Mexico on his back. He’s the true one and only cross-over superstar in boxing today and he reminds everyone when he says that this is “mi era”. As of December 2018, Álvarez is ranked the world's best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec, third by The Ring and eighth by the Boxing Writers Association of America. He is also ranked as the world's best active middleweight by BoxRec and by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board. Álvarez is known as an excellent counterpuncher, being able to exploit openings in his opponents' guards while avoiding punches with head and body movement. He is also known as a formidable body puncher,
3. Juan Miguel Echevarría (Cuba) – Long Jump
Launching to prominence in this year’s World Indoor Athletics Championships, Juan Miguel stole the show to become World Champion, beating the USA into silver position and Australia into bronze. Only 20 years old, Echevarría is already storming past far more established athletes and with his consistency during the last season, indoors and outdoors, Cuba may have an Olympic Champion in its midst at the next Games in 2020.
4. Marc Márquez (Spain) – MotoGP
With four World Championship titles under his belt, entering the 2018 season as reigning champion, Marc Márquez could have felt the pressure this year with competition fierce but instead he took it all in his stride, winning 9 of the 18 GPs, coming 2nd in 4 and 3rd once, taking the World Championship for a fifth time. In total, Marc took 25.9% of podium places this season, which is an extraordinary achievement. More outstanding still is that 14 of the 18 races were won by Spanish riders (3 by Jorge Lorenzo, and one a piece for Álex Rins and Maverick Viñales) and 50% of all podium places were Spanish. The most formidable competition for the Spanish is still Italy with Andrea Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi their strongest this year, however Italy only secured 3 wins this year (all Dovizioso) despite their 20 podium places out of a possible 54, meaning Spain are undoubtedly the ones to beat in MotoGP and Marquez is making the job of becoming victorious notoriously difficult year on year.
5. U17 Women’s Team (Spain) – Football – World Cup Winners
Not strictly a personality but definitely many hard working personalities who certainly gel well together. Spain’s U17 Women’s Football winning the U17 Women’s World Cup demonstrates Spain’s commitment to sport and its immense strength at all ages. Beating Mexico 2-1 in a riveting final, the future for Spanish Women’s football is extremely bright and sport in Spain certainly has a new set of people to look up to and to support as they continue to gain success in their careers.
6. Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah (Colombia) - Tennis
This Colombian tennis duo from Cali made history this year when they became the world’s #2 ranked doubles players, an unprecedented feat for a nation who had previously produced mediocre tennis players. The pair have consistantly reached the last rounds of major tournaments this year including the semi-finals at the US Open aswell as Beijing, Shanghai and Madrid and the finals in Buenos Aires, Rome, Cincinatti and famously in the Australian Open, where they beat the long time #1 pair Bryan and Bryan, considered to be the Roger Federer of doubles. All this has contributed to their end of year #2 ranking.
7. Javier Fernandez (Spain) - Figure Skating
For those of us who don’t follow figure skating, the elegance and beauty of seeing Javier Fernández López on the ice at the Olympic Games this year was a total revelation. Of course it was us who were ignorant, this handsome Spaniard was already a two-time World champion (2015, 2016), a six-time consecutive European champion (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), a three-time Grand Prix Final medalist (2014–15, 2015–16, 2011–12), and an eight-time Spanish national champion. He won the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist, before win the European champions again, becoming the first skater from Spain to medal at an Olympic Games, ISU Championship or a Grand Prix event. Javier is also the second man to break the 100-point barrier in the short program, the 200-point barrier in the long program and the 300-point barrier in the total score.
8. Juan Martin del Potro (Argentina) and Rafael Nadal (Spain) - Tennis
The best Latin American tennis player of his generation stuns audiences with his phenomenal 'slapping' forehand. Time and again Del Potro has recovered from a career beset with injury to get back to the top ten and this year was no exception. He started the year by winning Indian Wells and the Acapulco Open to obtain his 21st title, and his biggest title since 2013 Swiss Indoors. The Argentine 'tower' went on to win the BNP Paribas Open, the first Masters 1000 tournament of his career, beating Roger Federer in the final, despite Federer having 3 championship points, his biggest achievement since winning the 2009 US Open. History called again, as Del Potro found himself in the US Open final in September - his first Grand Slam final, 9 years after he won it in 2009. Though Djokovic proved to good, it was a phenomenal comeback for Del Potro who finished the year in the top 8 for the first time since 2013. Ofcourse we couldn't have Del Potro without mentioning the great Rafael Nadal, another phenomenal fighter and king of the comeback, who never gives up. Despite another season peppered with injury, 2018 still saw Nadal win five titles including a record extending 11th title at the French Open, and had his highest winning percentage of a single season at 91.83%.
9. Gabriel Medina (Brazil) - Surfing
In 2018, Gabriel became the first ever Brazilian World Surf Champion. Medina joined the world's elite of the World Surf League Tour in 2011, and in his rookie year he finished within the top 12 of the ASP (now WSL) World Tour at the age of 17. In March 2014 he won the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast. Media sources credit him as being the second person to have executed a maneuver called the "Backflip". Medina also became the first person ever to land this move in competition.
10. Klaus Jungbluth Rodríguez (Ecuador) – Skiing
Klaus Jungbluth Rodríguez is not a household name like many others on this list, mainly as he does not have a stand out result to reach the world press, however his ambition to compete for his country in his sport led him to negotiate with the Ecuadorian National Olympic Committee to form an Ecuadorian Ski Federation. In 2018, he became Ecuador’s first ever Winter Olympic athlete when he competed at the PyeongChang Games in South Korea, competing in cross-country skiing. He has not let his determination to compete be hampered by existing restraints, forming solutions to make his ambitions possible and this is truly inspirational.
Other mentions:
Ygor Coelho de Oliveira (Brazil) -Badminton. The Brailizan clinched three gold medals at the 2018 South American Badminton Games in the men's singles, doubles, and team event.
Hugo Marinho Borges Calderano (Brazil) Tabel Tennis. This year the Brazilian became Pan American table tennis champion. He is the first ever player from the Americas to reach the Top 10 of the ITTF World Rankings.
Sofia Mulanovic (Peru) - Surfing. Though considered a veteran now Sofia Mulanovic, the best female super Latin America has produced, added yet another WSL Qualifying Series (QS) event victory to her impressive resume. Mulanovich won the Ballito Pro pres by Billabong, a women's QS 1,000, beating Philippa Anderson (AUS) the final. Sofia became the first South American world champion in 2004 She is the first Peruvian surfer ever to win a World Surf League World Championship Tour event. In 2004, she won three out of the six World Championship Tour events, and finished the season as World Champion.
Nairo Quintana (Colombia) Cycling. Quintana has had a quieter 2018 season, dropping to an overall 3rd at the Tour de France. Quintana looked strong at the start of the Vuelta a España, however hedropped out of the podium after the Time trial on stage 16. He lost even more time on the following day to Balcon de Bizkaia. On stage 19 Quintana was only 6th place overall and had to attack if he wanted to win the race. Therefore, he attacked almost at the bottom of the final climb, but was as Pinot and Yates attacked and bridged the gap to Quintana, he could not follow their pace, and ended up riding in support for Valverde.
In Racquetball, Mexico's Rodrigo Montoya became world champion and in the women’s category Guatemala’s Ana Gabriela Martinez
Surfer Argentina’s Santiago Muñiz, from Mar del Plata, claimed the gold medal in the Open Men division at the 2018 ISA World Surfing Games, held in Tahara, Japan.
In MotoGP Spain's Jorge Lorenzo’s win at the Circuit de Catalunya, gave him his first back to back win since 2016. In Jorge Lorenzo's third win for the 2018 season in Austria, he defeated fellow Spaniard Marc Marquez by 0.130 seconds.
Portugal's Alexandre Camacho & Rui Rodrigues became European Rally Motor Sports Champions
There were world Triathlon victories for Spain's David Castro Fajardo and Rodrigo González (Mexico)
