43 People in sports awarded knighthoods

Sir Charles Benedict Ainslie CBE is a British competitive sailor. Ainslie is the most successful sailor in Olympic history. He won medals at five consecutive Olympics from 1996 onwards, including gold at the four consecutive Games held between 2000 and 2012.

Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister was a British middle-distance athlete and neurologist who ran the first sub-4-minute mile.

Sir Peter James Blake was a New Zealand yachtsman who won the 1989–1990 Whitbread Round the World Race, held the Jules Verne Trophy from 1994 to 1997 by setting the around the world sailing record as co-skipper of ENZA New Zealand, and led New Zealand to successive victories in the America's Cup.

Sir Charles Blyth, known as Chay Blyth, is a Scottish yachtsman and rower. He was the first person to sail single-handed non-stop westwards around the world (1971), on a 59-foot boat called British Steel.

Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL is a British mountaineer.

Sir John Arthur Brabham, was an Australian racing driver who was Formula One World Champion in 1959, 1960, and 1966. He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name.

Sir David John Brailsford is a British cycling coach. He was formerly performance director of British Cycling and is currently general manager of UCI WorldTeam Ineos Grenadiers.

Sir Norman Everard Brookes was an Australian tennis player. During his career he won three Grand Slam singles titles, Wimbledon in 1907 and 1914 and the Australasian Championships in 1911. Brookes was part of the Australasian Davis Cup team that won the title on six occasions. The Australian Open men's singles trophy, the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, is named in his honour. After his active playing career Brookes became president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia.

Major Sir Malcolm Campbell was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s using vehicles called Blue Bird, including a 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam. His son, Donald Campbell, carried on the family tradition by holding both land speed and water speed records.

Sir Henry Richard Amherst Cecil was a British flat racing horse trainer. He was widely regarded as one of the greatest trainers in history. Cecil was Champion Trainer 10 times and trained 25 domestic Classic winners, comprising four winners of The Derby, eight winners of The Oaks, six winners of the 1,000 Guineas, three of the 2,000 Guineas and four winners of the St Leger Stakes. His success in The Oaks and the 1,000 Guineas made him particularly renowned for his success with fillies. He was noted for his mastery at Royal Ascot, where he trained 75 winners.

Sir Robert James Charles is a New Zealand professional golfer. His achievements over five decades rank him among the most successful left-handed golfers of all time, being the first lefty to win a golf major, winning more than 70 titles, and beating his age twice during a tournament as a 71-year-old.

Sir Christopher John Chataway was a British middle- and long-distance runner, television news broadcaster, and Conservative politician.

Sir Francis Charles Chichester KBE was a British businessman, pioneering aviator and solo sailor.

Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe,, often referred to as Seb Coe or Lord Coe, is a British politician and former track and field athlete. As a middle-distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984. He set nine outdoor and three indoor world records in middle-distance track events – including, in 1979, setting three world records in the space of 41 days – and the world record he set in the 800 metres in 1981 remained unbroken until 1997. Coe's rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.

Sir Henry Cooper was a British heavyweight boxer, best remembered for a 1963 fight with a young Muhammad Ali, which Cooper, who at times looked on the verge of winning, lost when the fight was called off due to a cut. Cooper was undefeated in British and Commonwealth heavyweight championship contests for twelve years, and held the European heavyweight title for three years. In 1966 he fought Ali, by then world heavyweight champion, a second time and was again stopped on cuts without being off his feet. Cooper twice was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and after retiring in 1971 following a controversial loss remained a popular public figure. He is the only boxer to have been awarded a knighthood.

Sir Thomas Henry Cotton, MBE was an English professional golfer. He won the Open Championship in 1934, 1937 and 1948, becoming the leading British player of his generation. The Rookie of the Year award in European Tour is named after him.

Sir Russell Coutts is a world champion New Zealand yachtsman.

Sir Philip Lee Craven is an English sports administrator, former Paralympic wheelchair basketball player, swimmer and track and field athlete. Between 2001 and 2017 he was the second president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

Sir Nicholas Alexander Faldo, is an English professional golfer who is now mainly an on-air golf analyst. A top player of his era, renowned for his dedication to the game, he was ranked No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking for a total of 97 weeks. His 41 professional wins include 30 victories on the European Tour and six major championships: three Open Championships and three Masters.

Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah is a British long-distance runner and the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history. He is the 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medalist in both the 5000 m and 10,000 m. Farah is the second athlete in modern Olympic Games history, after Lasse Virén, to win both the 5000 m and 10,000 m titles at successive Olympic Games. He also completed the 'distance double' at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships in Athletics. He was the second man in history, after Kenenisa Bekele, to win long-distance doubles at successive Olympics and World Championships, and the first in history to defend both distance titles in both major global competitions – a feat described as the 'quadruple-double'. Since finishing 2nd in the 10,000 metres at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Farah had an unbroken streak of ten global final wins. The streak ended in Farah's final championship track race, when he finished second to Ethiopia's Muktar Edris in the 2017 5000 metres final. In his final track race, the 2017 Diamond League Final in Zurich in August 2017, Farah gained his revenge, edging out world champion Edris to win his only IAAF Diamond League title at 5000 metres.

Sir Brendan Foster is a British former long-distance runner, athletics commentator and road race organiser, who founded the Great North Run, one of the sport's most high profile half-marathon races. As an athlete, he won the bronze medal in the 10,000 metres at the 1976 Summer Olympics, and the gold medal in the 5,000 metres at the 1974 European Championships and the 10,000 metres at the 1978 Commonwealth Games. He has provided commentary and analysis on athletics, particularly long-distance events, for BBC Sport since the end of his running career.

Sir Harcourt Gilbey Gold was a successful British rower, the first to be knighted for services to the sport.

Sir Murray Gordon Halberg is a New Zealand former middle-distance runner who won the gold medal in the 5000 metres event at the 1960 Olympics. He also won gold medals in the 3 miles events at the 1958 and 1962 Commonwealth Games. He has worked for the welfare of children with disabilities since he founded the Halberg Trust in 1963.

Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton is a British racing driver, activist, fashion designer and musician. He currently competes in Formula One for Mercedes, having previously driven for McLaren from 2007 to 2012. In Formula One, Hamilton has won a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles, while he holds the outright records for the most wins (95), pole positions (98) and podium finishes (165), amongst others.

Sir Peter Heatly, was a Scottish diver and Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation. He competed in the 3 m springboard and 10 m platform at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics, at the 1950, 1954 and 1958 British Empire Games, and at the 1954 European Championships. He won five British Empire Games medals and one European medal, while his best Olympic result was fifth place in 1948. Heatly was knighted in 1990, before being inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002, the Scottish Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2016.

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. From 1985 to 1988 he served as New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and concurrently as Ambassador to Nepal.

Sir Christopher Andrew Hoy, MBE is a British racing driver and former track cyclist from Scotland who represented Great Britain at the Olympic and World Championships and Scotland at the Commonwealth Games.

Brigadier Henry Cecil John Hunt, Baron Hunt,, styled as Sir Henry Hunt from 1953 to 1966, was a British Army officer who is best known as the leader of the successful 1953 British Expedition to Mount Everest.

Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, he won the second Jules Verne Trophy, for which they were also named the ISAF Yachtsman of the Year award. In 2007, at the age of 67, he set a record as the oldest yachtsman to complete a round the world solo voyage in the Velux 5 Oceans Race.

Sir Anthony Peter McCoy, commonly known as AP McCoy or Tony McCoy, is a Northern Irish former horse racing jockey. Based in Ireland and the UK, McCoy rode a record 4,358 winners, and was Champion Jockey a record 20 consecutive times, every year he was a professional. He stands 1.78 m (5'10"), far taller than most jockeys.

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss was a British Formula One racing driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several categories of competition and has been described as "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship". In a seven-year span between 1955 and 1961 Moss finished as championship runner-up four times and in third place the other three times.

Sir Andrew Barron Murray is a British professional tennis player from Scotland. He has been ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 41 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 in 2016. He has won three Grand Slam singles titles, including two at Wimbledon, and has reached eleven major finals in total. Murray was ranked in the top 10 for all but one month from July 2008 through October 2017, and finished no lower than No. 4 in eight of the nine year-end rankings during that span. Murray has won 46 ATP singles titles, including 14 ATP Masters 1000 events.

Sir David Lee Pearson is an 11-times Paralympic Games gold medallist having represented British para-equestrianism in Sydney, Athens, Beijing London and Rio. Over the course of his career he has won 30 gold medals at European, World and Paralympic level.

Sir Matthew Clive Pinsent, is an English rower and broadcaster. During his rowing career, he won 10 world championship gold medals and four consecutive Olympic gold medals.

Sir Steven Geoffrey Redgrave is a British retired rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships golds. He is the most successful male rower in Olympic history, and the only man to have won gold medals at five Olympic Games in an endurance sport.

Jacques Jean Marie Rogge, Count Rogge is a Belgian sports administrator and physician who served as the eighth President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2001 to 2013. In 2013, the IOC announced that Rogge would become their Honorary President.

Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave was an early British pioneer in land speed and water speed records. Segrave, who set three land and one water record, was the first person to hold both titles simultaneously and the first person to travel at over 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) in a land vehicle. He died in an accident in 1930 shortly after setting a new world water speed record on Windermere in the Lake District, England. The Segrave Trophy was established to commemorate his life.

Sir Peter George Snell was a New Zealand middle-distance runner. He won three Olympic gold medals, and is the only man since 1920 to have won the 800 and 1500 metres at the same Olympics, in 1964.

Sir John Young "Jackie" Stewart, is a British former Formula One racing driver from Scotland. Nicknamed the "Flying Scot", he competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships, and twice finishing as runner-up over those nine seasons.

Sir Mark James Todd is a New Zealand horseman noted for his accomplishments in the discipline of eventing, voted Rider of the 20th century by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports.

Sir John George Walker, is a former middle-distance runner from New Zealand who won the 1500 m event at the 1976 Olympics. He was also the first person to run the mile in under 3:50. In more recent years, Walker has been active in local government, as an Auckland Councillor and representing the Manurewa-Papakura ward.

Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE is a British former professional road and track racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2016.

Sir Francis Owen Garbett Williams is a British businessman, former racing car driver and mechanic. The founder of the Williams Formula One team, he was team principal until September 2020.