Asks Rawle Toney
It is that time of the year when the National Sports Commission (NSC) awards the outstanding male and female junior and senior sports athletes for their performances during 2009 but first, they have to go through the arduous and knotty process of nominations.
Director of Sport said that NSC is awaiting nominations from the various Associations and Federations for the awards which will also go to the coach and sports team of the year, sports association of the year as well as the most improved association of the year awards and the male and female sports personality-of-the-year awards.
They say that many are called but few are chosen so I will attempt to presage those who I feel should at least be called but keep in mind that I wouldn’t go down the avenue of predict those who should be chosen for the accolade.
Senior Sportsman-of-the-year
Guyana and West Indies star batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul received the 2008 senior sportsman-of-the-year award; a feat which he had accomplished for the fifth time.
Statistically speaking I don’t think that the crafty left-hander had as good a year in 2009 as he had in 2008 but yet still I can’t say that he is out of contention after all, he was given the Cacique Crown of Honour (Guyana’s third highest National Award) last year by President Bharrat Jagdeo and declared a national hero.
But last year several persons excelled in their respective disciplines and are more than worthy of being bestowed the title of sportsman-of-the-year.
In cricket, the flashy right handed Guyana and West Indies star Rameresh Sarwan, the exciting Berbician Narsingh Deonarine and the sturdy Travis Dowlin are among those who could give him stiff competition.
Sarwan who was named the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Cricketer-of-the-Year last week has played 83 Test matches and scored 850 runs from nine matches this year with four centuries and one half century.
Deonarine had scored over 1000 runs last year in the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB)
President’s Cup first-class tournament which earned him a recall to the West Indies senior team. He went on to score an entertaining 82 against Australia last month when the Windies toured down under.
In the less popular sport of Power Lifting, ‘Big’ John Edwards, Randolph Morgan and Mervin ‘Spongy’ Moses are strong contenders for the honour after excelling at the 7th NAPF North American Regional Power-lifting Championships and the 12th NAPF/FESUPO Pan-American Regional which was held in Miami, Florida.
The trio also had gold medal performances at the North American Power-lifting Federation Caribbean Champio-nships.
Away from the iron to field, the name Gregory ‘Jackie Chan’ Richardson pops up after the striker became the first Guyanese to play in the US Major League Soccer (MLS) when he signed with the Colorado Rapids.
The 27-year-old striker came to prominence during the CONCACAF Club Championship with his Trinidad and Tobago Pro-League club Joe Public when he devastated MLS top club New England Revolution scoring a hat-trick in his club’s 4-0 win. Richardson also single-handedly ripped apart several other top clubs in the tournament.
But the player was later waived by the MLS club and landed in the nest of the Carolina RailHawks in the United States Soccer League (USL) which lays one division under the MLS.
In his first week, the striker was named the League’s player of the week and scored numerous goals for the club and flew the golden arrowhead for the first time in the League.
However, let’s bear in mind that it is the associations and federation in the respective
disciplines who must submit the names for consideration.
It is my believe that should Richardson win the award it would serve as a boon to up and coming players in the discipline since they would then have more to look forward to in addition to making the national team.
In athletics, the name Cleveland Forde pops up as the distance athlete enjoyed a remarkable year in 2009.
Forde started 2009 with an extraordinary win at home in annual CARICOM 10K where he defeated some of the regions best distance athletes including St Vincent and the Grenadines stalwart Pamenos Ballantyne.
The ‘Little Kenyan’ won the first two legs of the IAAF South American 10K in Guyana and Suriname and ran second in the third leg that was hosted in Panama. He also won the Antigua 10K and placed fourth and fifth respectively in the Run Barbados Half Marathon and 10K.
Forde was named 2008 male athlete-of-the-year by the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) and once held the junior sportsman-of-the-year for 2007.
National full-bore captain Mahendra Persaud can also create a stir at the table for his performance at the Queens Imperial Shooting championships in Bisley, England.
Persaud reached the finals of the event from a field of over 1200 marksmen and finished 90th out of the final 100.
Junior Sportsman-of-The-Year
Commonwealth Youth Games silver medallist Clevon Rock won the junior sportsman award in 2008 but 2009 had been a rocky year for amateur boxing and as such it is already known that another fighter wouldn’t take the crown.
Some other noteworthy athletes are cricketer Trevon Griffith and basketball sensation
Akeem ‘The Dream’ Kanhai.
Griffith had enjoyed great form when he played for Guyana in the West Indies TCL Under-19 tournament.
He was one of the highest run-scorers, totalling 406 runs at an average of 40. He stroked one century, 104 against the Leeward Islands and in the process, the left-handed 18-year-old Demerara Cricket Club opening batsman earned a spot in the West Indies team and will be competing in the Youth World Cup, set for New Zealand this year.
For Kanhai, basketball in the year 2009 certainly belonged to him as the crafty 18 year-old from Linden left an incredible mark on the game that could that go deeper as he progresses in his career.
His unique and stylish plays has led him to numerous Most Valuable Player (MVP) and scoring titles and even on the cover of Guyana’s first magazine dedicated to basketball which was released on stands in the USA this week and also featured on sports world governing body; International Basketball Federation (FIBA) website.
The basketball wiz also excelled at the CAPE exams and captained Guyana’s team at the Inter Guiana Games in Suriname. Records would show that no basketball player has ever won the junior sportsman of the year title but Kanhai’s dream may be on the verge of being shattered as little or nothing has been heard about the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF).
Senior Sportswoman-of-The-Year
Alika Morgan was the first athlete to cop both the junior and senior sportswoman of the year titles when she took home the bacon for her outstanding performances in 2008.
The distance athlete had a sensational year competing both locally and regionally but the initial stages of 2009 was not kind to her since she was plagued with several injuries.
However, Morgan rebounded in the latter part of last year and ended strong. Morgan ran second in both legs of the IAAF South American 10K but was not fortunate to make the voyage to Panama for the third and final leg.
She retained her Antigua Prime Minister 10K title and was the first junior and Caribbean athlete to finish second in the Run Barbados 10K and Half Marathon.
Capping her regional dominance, Morgan also ran undefeated in the local meets including the national schools Track, Field and Swimming Championships.
On the other hand, one cannot forget about Shondell Alfred who stopped the ‘Panther’; American Gladiator Corinne De Groot by unanimous decision to lift the Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) Bantamweight Title.
The ‘Mystery Lady’ became Guyana’s seventh world champion, following in the footsteps of Andrew ‘Six Heads’ Lewis, ‘Vicious’ Vivian Harris, Wayne ‘Big Truck’ Braithwaite, Pamela London, Gwendolyn ‘Stealth Bomber’ O Neil and Gairy St Clair.
Other than Gwendolyn ‘Stealth Bomber’ O’Neil who won the Sportswoman-of-The-Year award in 2004, no other female boxer has ever been given the honour.
Then there is the ‘Squash Queen’ Nicolette Fernandes.
After being out of competition for almost two years with a career-threatening knee injury, the Caribbean Squash champ returned to claim her first ever Women’s International Squash Players Association (WISPA) tournament when she won the Greek Open in early December.
Fernandes had reached an all-time personal best 27 in the world rankings in May 2007 before forced out by injury but steady progress in several international tournaments now sees her being ranked at 70 in the world.
She is also the highest rated player from the Caribbean and won the Sportswoman-of-the-Year award back-to-back in 2000/01 and then again in 2005.
I personally wouldn’t want to be among the helm of the decision makers for this particular award since all of the above mentioned persons are more than worthy of the accolade.
Junior Sportswoman-of-the-year
In the junior category again, Morgan’s name pops up once again but for me, I think her rival for this award would be Javina Straker.
Everyone would remember the diminutive mid-distance athlete when she copped Guyana’s lone gold medal at the 38th Junior CARFITA Games held in St Lucia at the George Odly Stadium.
Fifteen-year-old Straker clocked 4:42.89 in the Girls Under-17, 1500 metres beating Jamaica’s Petrene Plummer (4:43.65) and fellow Guyanese Jonella Jonas (4:45.05) and qualified for the World Youth games.
She would not go on to the games in Italy since the IAAF said at the time, Straker was under age, 14 to be exact and though she responded with tears, some blistering performances which also included gold medal in the first leg of the 2009 IGG game that was hosted here.
Coach of the year
In 2008, national coach Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover won the title for his exploits with the Alpha United football club.
But again in 2009, Dover went into the history books when he piloted Guyana’s senior national team or as many would call them, The Golden Jaguars, to their first ever International tournament win.
Dover’s troops played undefeated in the Suriname Independence Cup which feature host Suriname, French Guiana and the Netherland Antilles.
So, who will be the challengers to Dover this year? Well, there is Rugby Sevens Coach Laurie Adonis who again coached Guyana to victory in the North American & Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Sevens Title.
Team-of-the-year
Again this is the tight race as it would be a square of the Footballs being the GFF and the Guyana Football Rugby Union (GRFU).
Guyana male and female Sevens Rugby team won the NACRA Sevens title when the championship was held in Mexico.
For the men’s team it is their fourth consecutive title, and they will represent the region at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India alongside Canada and the at the IRB World Sevens Series set for Las Vegas next month.
The Golden Jaguars won Guyana’s first and only international tournament when they won the Suriname Independence Cup.
There will also be awards for the print and non-print journalist and while I would love to spell out my predictions in detail, I’m sorry but I’ll have to go with me on this one!