British tennis is enjoying its most successful period for 30 years, and the next generation of up-and-coming players can sharpen their technique using the same facilities that have helped inspire the nation's stars at two new junior academies at Spain's La Manga Club this year. The official overseas training base of the Lawn Tennis Association, La Manga Club has hosted the likes of world number one Andy Murray as well as British women's number one Johanna Konta, Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund in recent years, and the resort will be running two extra programmes in 2017 – an 'Advanced Matchplay' academy and 'Junior Elite' academy.

Atlanta’s own Orrin ‘Checkmate’ Hudson is using the enthusiasm that is a part of his every day game plan to encourage the NFL to open the Georgia Dome for one last football celebration on Sunday, when the Atlanta Falcons face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI. Hudson is the founder of Be Someone, Inc., an organization that uses the game of chess to teach young people how to make the right moves in life.

Britain’s 60m hurdles world leader Andrew Pozzi will go head to head with Rio Olympic silver and bronze medallists Orlando Ortega and Dimitri Bascou, as well as rising star David Omoregie, at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham. Ortega of Spain and France’s reigning European champion Bascou, are just two of 39 current global champions and medallists competing at the world’s top indoor athletics meeting at the Barclaycard Arena on 18 February.

Strathmore water has been announced as the national supplier of bottled water for both the IAAF World Championships London 2017 and the World Para Athletics Championships. Athletes, officials and volunteers at both events next summer will be hydrated by more than one million bottles of water being supplied by the water brand. This year will bring together more than 3000 world-class athletes from more than 200 countries, who will compete in 30 sessions across 20 jam-packed and action-fueled days as both the World Para Athletics Championships (14-23 July) and IAAF World Championships London 2017 (04-13 August) are hosted in London this summer.

Innsbruck has been the starting, staging or finishing point of various major bikes races on more than thirty occasions. With the Tour of the Alps, the Ötztal Bike Marathon, the Crankworx Biking Festival, the Road Race and the Haute Routes Dolomites, this year Innsbruck will be hosting no fewer than five international élite biking events. And these will whet the appetite for the event highlight next year: in September 2018 Innsbruck will be the venue for the UCI – Road World Championships where the best road racers in the world will be gathering. 

The sporting legends pictured above attended the very first Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco in 2000, where former South Africa President Nelson Mandela famously told them: ‘sport has the power to change the world.’ 17 years later, Mandela’s words still ring true and many of these legends will make a special return to Monaco next month to honour the greatest sportsmen and women of the past 12 months.