AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- British photographer Mike Wells of Life Magazine was declared Press Photographer of the Year Thursday for his picture of hunger in Uganda in the 24th World Press Photo contest.
Joe Marquette of United Press International won the sports category first prize with a picture of Britain's Sebastian Coe winning the 1500 meters at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.
Chairman of the World Press Photo Foundation Holland, Joop Swart, said Wells' widely published picture of the emaciated hand of a black child cradled in the palm of an apparently well-fed white was selected from 4,660 pictures entered by 801 contestants from 53 countries.
The color photo, titled 'Droughts Harvest in Uganda,' also won the news features category. Wells earned a prize of $2,500, the coveted Golden Eye Trophy and a free trip to Amsterdam for the prize awards April 8.
The Golden Eye is generally regarded as the top accolade for a professional press photographer.
Marquette's picture, captioned 'Coe Cops the Gold,' showed an agonized Coe holding out his arms as he hit the tape last summer ahead of East Germany's Juergen Straub and countryman Steve Ovett.
Marquette, 43, has covered summer Olympics in 1968, 1972, 1976 and winter Games in 1972 as well as World Series baseball, championship boxing and American Super Bowls.
He accompanied former President Nixon on his trip to China in 1972 and has been based in UPI's Denver bureay since 1967.
The international jury of nine judges, including Bill Lyon, UPI vice president for news pictures, was led by the editor of the Sunday Times in London -- and editor designate of the London Times -- Harold Evans.
American Werner Gartung of Life Magazine won the spot news category with a picture of 'Liberia's Coup d'Etat' and George Wedding of the San Jose Mercury News in California won the picture story section with his photograph of the eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano.
American Ovie Carter of the Chicago Tribune won the general picture category and Rene Leveque, a French freelance, collected the people section first prize with a study of Pope John Paul II.
The Color picture title went to Ian Yeomans of Britain's Sunday Times for his photograph of 'Heart Transplant.'
A foundation official said nine international judges spent three days selecting the winning pictures.
