LOCAL swimmer Alice Tai has been nominated for the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability award.

Alice, 20, from Poole, is a British parasport swimmer and won six gold medals across six disciplines at the London Para-swimming World Championships.

The 20-year-old was born with bilateral talipes, or club foot, and by the age of 12 she had undergone 14 corrective operations. In 2016, she was awarded an MBE for her services to swimming.

Alice said: “I’m really excited to be nominated for a Laureus World Sports Award.

“I’ve grown up in a really sporty family and so many other people’s names were just sort of thrown around like, ‘look what so and so has just done’.”

The 2020 ceremony is being held in Berlin on February 17 and the winners receive a Cartier Laureus statuette which features a “representation of the striving human form.”

Other awards up for grabs are the Sportsman of the Year, Sportswoman of the Year, World Team of the Year, World Comeback of the Year, World Breakthrough of the Year and Action Sportsperson of the ear.

Notable nominees for the awards include footballer Lionel Messi, golfer Tiger Woods, young tennis star Coco Gauff and the United States Football Team.

Alice continued: “To be part of the awards now and held in almost a similar league as those people is insane. Honestly it blows my mind.

“We don’t really have any awards which put us against other athletes around the world, and across all sports, as well. We have individual swimming and maybe one for women in sport in Britain but nothing on this scale.

“To be regarded as one of the top six, I wouldn’t put myself in that position because I just look at it like a hobby, and I just happen to win medals sometimes.

“But to now be regarded on that level, I’m honestly speechless.”

Alice faces competition from Diede De Groot, a wheelchair tennis player, Jetze Plat for the triathlon, Manuela Schär, from wheelchair racing, Oksana Masters, a cross country skier and Omara Durand, and athlete.

“I think having more exposure for people with disability is really important in general because it allows others who have acquired a disability in their life or born with one to understand that so much is possible, even if they are limited in certain ways, they can do so much,” Alice added.