Fury autobiography wins Telegraph's Sports Book of the Year Award

Tyson Fury's Behind the Mask (Century) has won Sports Book of the Year at this year's Telegraph Sports Book Awards.

The heavyweight boxing champion first took the Autobiography of the Year award before going on to win the overall prize.

Meanwhile England rugby coach Eddie Jones took the Rugby prize for My Life and Rugby (Macmillan), co-written with Donald McRae. He said: “I’m delighted to win rugby book of the year at the Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2020. I’m also really pleased for the publishers Macmillan and writer Don McRae. They did such a great job in putting the book together so I think this is great recognition for them. It’s nice that people have enjoyed the book and hopefully they’ve got something out of it as well.” 

The Heartaches Cricket Book of the Year was awarded to Telegraph cricket writer Tim Wigmore, alongside Freddie Wilde for Cricket 2.0  (Polaris) which charts the rise of T20 cricket. 

Tobias Jones picked up the CLOC Football Book of the Year for Ultra (Head of Zeus), a " fascinating" exploration of  subculture and "the sinister side of fandom" in Italian football.

Peter Cossins won the VAARU Cycling Book award for the second year running with his Tour de France celebration The Yellow Jersey (Yellow Jersey Press). The book features interviews with cyclists including Chris Froome, Thomas Voeckler and the oldest living wearer of the yellow jersey, Antonin Rolland. Cossins won the 2019 prize for Full Gas: How to Win a Bike Race — Tactics From Inside the Peloton, also published by Yellow Jersey. 

The awards partnered with the National Literacy Trust this year, to set up the Children's Sports Book of the Year. Matt Oldfield's Unbelievable Football (Wren & Rook) won the inaugural prize, staving off competition from the shortlisted Sir Chris Hoy, England footballer Casey Stoney and BBC Sport's Clare Balding.

Oldfield said: "I'm absolutely delighted to win this award, especially with so many other brilliant books on the shortlist. The late great Johan Cruyff once said: 'Football has to be fun for kids or it doesn't make sense,' and I'm a firm believer that the same goes for reading too. With Unbelievable Football, our aim was to showcase the incredible range and power of sporting stories — to inspire, inform, entertain, and, above all, engage young readers. So thank you, this award is the perfect prize.”

The Pinsent Masons International Sports Book of the Year was awarded to Casey Legler for Godspeed (Scribe). Described as a "raw account of dealing with horrific abuse, battling alcholism and drug use", the memoir reveals Legler's experiences as a teenage Olympic swimmer. 

This year’s General Outstanding Sports Writing Award winner was Olympic rower Annie Vernon's Mind Games (Bloomsbury). The book, "an insider’s guide to the psychology of elite athletes", draws on Vernon's own experiences and features interviews with coaches, athletes and psychologists. Vernon won a silver medal in Beijing, alongside Dame Katherine Grainger, Debbie Flood and Frances Houghton. 

The prize for illustrated book went to the Sun photographer Richard Pelham for A Life Behind the Lens (Pitch Publishing), which exhibits 30 years of his work, including images from six World Cups. Biography of the Year went to Richard Askwith’s Unbreakable (Vintage) "a story of endurance and defiance", which focuses on the life of Czech countess Lata Brandisová  and her  journey to taking part in the Grand Pardubice steeplechase during Nazi occupation.

The winners were announced in an online ceremony today (15th July), replacing the traditional celebration at Lord's Cricket Ground.