The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) had nominated Alika Morgan for the title of 2009 Senior Sportswoman-of-the-Year award but according to the Caribbean distance star, she is still a junior and so she should have been nominated for both awards.
Last year Morgan became the first person to be named both Junior and Senior Sportswoman-of-the-Year but this time around the AAG has nominated her Rising Star club mate Javina Straker for the junior award.
Morgan battled through injuries at the beginning of 2009 and rebounded to finish second in both legs of the IAAF South American 10K before going on to win the Run Barbados and Antigua Prime Minister 10K and the Run Barbados Half Marathon.
Straker on the other hand landed Guyana’s lone gold medal at last year’s Junior CARIFTA Games in St Lucia and also had an exceptional year competing on the local scene.
“Javina is my club mate and my friend and I don’t have anything against her but I just wanted them to know that I am a junior still. Last year, I won two IAAF sanctioned races plus I was the first person from the Caribbean to win the Run Barbados 10K and Half Marathon and those races had people from Kenya and all over the world, but I am still a junior,” Morgan told Stabroek Sport.
Contacted last evening, AAG boss Colin Boyce admitted that it was a mistake on his association’s part because their nominations were based on their own awards presented earlier in the month.
Morgan and Cleveland Forde were named the AAG’s male and female Athletes-of-the-Year while Straker and Ricardo Martin were the junior awardees.
“The thing is that it is a mistake on our part because we honestly overlooked her because of how we used to judge the nominees and we only rechecked it after she (Morgan) raised it with me. But the thing is when we had met at our meeting to come up with the names to send to the NSC, her coach (Leslie Blacks) was there and he didn’t say nothing,” Boyce said.
The AAG president added that after another meeting, they had decided to submit Morgan’s name to the Sports Commission.
Meanwhile, Stabroek Sport caught up with Director of Sports Neil Kumar last evening and when the case was related, Kumar said that he wasn’t sure if it would be permitted since the various associations were given a certain grace period to have their nominees for the various awards submitted.
“Well honestly I haven’t been told anything of this yet, but normally it wouldn’t be permitted because they had all the time to make their changes and so on, and as a matter of fact we had to push back the dates because the associations were not ready,” Kumar said.
The Director of Sports added that “They should have known all these things and not wait until this minute to make their changes, but like I said, I am not sure about this because I have to see and hear about this more, so in the morning (today) I could tell you what is our position really.”
The various category winners will be decided on Friday, February 12 with the awards set for some time in March at the National Cultural Centre.
