Sport-Peaty, Raducanu and England men's soccer team win SJA awards

LONDON (Reuters) - Olympic swimming gold medallist Adam Peaty and U.S. Open tennis champion Emma Raducanu won Britain's Sports Journalists' Association (SJA) sportsman and woman of the year awards on Thursday.

The England men's soccer team, who lost 3-2 to Italy on penalties in the European Championship final at Wembley in July, were voted team of the year.

Britain's oldest sporting awards were first held in 1949.

Breaststroke champion Peaty became the first British swimmer to retain an Olympic title at the Tokyo Games and is the first to be named sportsman of the year since David Wilkie in 1976.

He beat heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury and seven-times Olympic cycling champion Jason Kenny in the top three. Seven-times Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won the award last year.

Raducanu beat Kenny's record-breaking wife Laura, a five-times Olympic gold medallist in cycling, with Paralympian Sarah Storey third.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)

FILE PHOTO: Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Swimming - Men's 100m Breaststroke - Final - Tokyo Aquatics Centre - Tokyo, Japan - July 26, 2021. Adam Peaty of Britain in action. REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel

FILE PHOTO: Sep 9, 2021; Flushing, NY, USA; Emma Raducanu of Great Britain celebrates after match point against Maria Sakkari of Greece (not pictured) on day eleven of the 2021 U.S. Open tennis tournament at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Mandatory Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY SEARCH "POY SPORTS" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "REUTERS POY" FOR ALL BEST OF 2021 PACKAGES

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