5-time Olympic biking champion Dame Laura Kenny has received a public vote to be named BBC 5 Dwell Breakfast’s UK Sportswoman of the twenty first Century.
Kenny was considered one of 15 excellent feminine sportswomen shortlisted for his or her affect in UK sport since 2000.
Kenny has received 5 Olympic golds, seven world titles, and 14 European golds – making her Britain’s most adorned feminine bike owner.
Past sport, she has championed maternity help and childcare, equal prize cash, and elevated funding in ladies’s biking.
The vote was held on-line from 25-29 August 2025.
Former Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill got here second, adopted by England footballer Lucy Bronze – a two-time European Championship winner.
Who was on the shortlist?
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Nicola Adams
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Rebecca Adlington
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Maggie Alphonsi
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Lucy Bronze
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Charlotte Edwards
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Jessica Ennis-Hill
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Katherine Grainger
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Tanni Gray-Thompson
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Kelly Holmes
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Laura Kenny
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Ellen MacArthur
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Kate Richardson-Walsh
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Ellie Simmonds
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Sarah Storey
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Chrissie Wellington
Shortlisting standards and judges
The shortlisted sportswomen had been chosen from a longlist of greater than 180 athletes from greater than 50 completely different sports activities. The standards for inclusion on this longlist was each excellent achievement inside their sport and making a major contribution to ladies’s sport.
The person should even have participated of their sport as a participant/athlete from the 12 months 2000 onwards.
From the longlist, a panel of judges shortlisted the 15 ladies above.
The panellists included BBC 5 dwell broadcasters Eleanor Oldroyd, Jeanette Kwakye and Sonja McLaughlan, BBC Sport’s ladies’s sport reporter Jo Currie, Stephanie Hilborne (CEO Girls in Sport), Paula Dunn (head coach GB Para-athletics), Montell Douglas (former GB sprinter and Gladiator), JJ Chalmers (broadcaster and Invictus video games medallist), Riya Mannu (Birmingham Metropolis WFC) and Penny Briscoe (director of sport, Paralympics GB).
