Cyclist Nicholas Paul and track and field athlete Michelle Lee Ahye walked away with the top male and female honours at the Trinidad & Tobago Olympic Committee 27th Annual Awards Ceremony held on Wednesday evening.
In the event, which was broadcast over video-conferencing platform Zoom, Paul and Ahye were named TTOC’s senior Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year respectively for 2021.
TTOC President Brian Lewis addressed the virtual audience before the distribution of awards.
“In 2021, our athletes showed that they faced their fears. They went to Tokyo and gave their best. They did not make excuses and of course, they showed emotional, physical, and mental stamina by facing their disappointments, their failures, their mistakes, and the criticism of those who weren’t in the arena; who didn’t have to overcome economic issues, lack of training issues, doubt issues, death in their families and close circles,” said Lewis.
“As we look forward to 2022, we are encouraged by the example and the discipline and resolve shown by team TTO at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the Junior Pan Am Games,” he added.
It was Ahye’s fourth time holding the title after winning from 2016-2018 while Paul received the award for the second time, his first coming back in 2019.
Paul, the current world-record holder in the Men’s flying 200m, earned the top male award based on his silver medal performance in the Men’s one-kilometre time-trial at the UCI Tissot World Track Cycling Championship in Roubaix, France, back in October.
He was also sixth in the Men’s Sprint at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Ahye was deemed the top female based on her ninth-place finish in the Women’s 100m at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where she narrowly missed out on the final.
Swimmer Nikoli Blackman, a member of T&T’s teams at both the Pan Am Junior Games and Swimming World Championships (SC) this year, was named Junior Sportsman of the Year for the second consecutive year, and track and field athlete Rae-Anne Serville, now representing USC, was Junior Sportswoman of the Year.
Olympic long jump finalist and 2021 NCAA Heptathlon Champion at Texas A&M, Tyra Gittens, was named the Sports Personality of the Year and reacted to it on her Instagram page on Wednesday.
“Blessed to receive the Sports Personality award during the TTOC 27th Annual Award Ceremony this evening. I can’t wait to represent TTO again next year,” she said.
West Indies senior women’s vice-captain Anissa Mohammed won the Future is Female award.
Jamaican double-double Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson-Herah was named by Diamond League Most Consistent Athlete in the women’s sprints for the 2021 season on Monday.
Thompson-Herah won four races on the Diamond League circuit for the year, in addition to her three gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics in July.
She ran times of 10.54 and 10.72 to win the 100m at the Eugene and Paris Diamond League meets on August 21st and August 28th, respectively, before winning the event at the Diamond League Final in Zurich in 10.65 on September 9th.
The former Manchester High School student also finished second in the 100m, at the Lausanne Diamond League, in 10.64 on August 26th.
Her only 200m win on the Diamond League circuit this year came in Gateshead where she ran 22.43 on July 13th.
The honour follows the trend of a trophy-filled festive period for the sprinter as she has already been named World Female Athlete of the Year by World Athletics, Athletics Weekly’s Female Athlete of the Year, and the NACAC Female Athlete of the Year in the month of December.
She is also widely favored to be named the RJR Sportswoman of the Year for 2021.
The local Track & Field community is in collective mourning after the passing of John Messam.
Messam passed away at 61 on Sunday after a long battle with illness.
The Calabar High School Old Boy was an IT professional, working as an Oracle Database Administrator at the Porth Authority for 22 years.
At the same time, Messam was a respected Track & Field coach, specializing in hurdles events.
A former Florida International University and Seton Hall University student, Messam was also the founder of Hurdles Crew Jamaica, an organization, which was created to enhance the lives of at-risk youth by allowing them to engage in voluntary work at Track & Field meets each year.
Messam was often the man to who Track & Field coaches would send their hurdlers when they needed someone to fix their technique.
Funeral arrangements will be made at a later date.
The communities of Paradise and Norwood, in Montego Bay, experienced some Christmas cheer as the destinations for Jamaican sprinter Briana Williams’ 2nd annual Christmas Treat on Thursday.
300 children in the communities were gifted toys and food items from her sponsors Digicel and Grace Foods.
Transportation for the gifts was provided by KIG Jamaica.
The 19-year-old was a member of Jamaica’s gold medal-winning Women’s 4x100 team at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, running a blistering first leg to help the team achieve a national record of 41.02.
Williams also won the sprint double at the 2018 World Junior Championships in Tampere, Finland with times of 11.16 in the 100m and 22.50 in the 200m, her current personal best.
Her 100m personal best stands at 10.97 done in Florida in June this year.
Olympic double sprint champion Elaine Thompson-Herah has roped in another award on the back of her stellar 2021 season.
The 29-year-old sprinter was on Wednesday named the Track and Field News Female Athlete of the Year.
Thompson-Herah was voted the winner of the award by a 35-member international voting panel of the highly-respected track and field magazine, narrowly edging Venezuela's Olympic triple jump gold medalist and world-record holder, Yulimar Rojas.
The remainder of the top-five in voting included Dutch distance runner Sifan Hassan, American 400m Hurdler Sydney McLaughlin and Kenyan middle-distance runner Faith Kipyegon.
During her history-making season, Thompson-Herah became the first woman to win the 100m, 200m sprint double at consecutive Olympics, winning the 100m in a time of 10.61, an Olympic record, and the 200m in 21.53 in Tokyo in July.
She would go even faster in the 100m at the Prefontaine Classic in August, recording a 10.54-second clocking, the second-fastest time in history.
Thompson-Herah was also named World Athletics Female Athlete of the Year and the British Journal Athletics Weekly’s Female Athlete of the Year this month. She was also named NACAC Female Athlete of the Year and is favoured to be the RJR Sportswoman of the Year for 2021.
Elaine Thompson-Herah is now being represented by Andisportsmanagement after parting ways with Adrian Laidlaw late last year. The management agency revealed their new client on Instagram on Monday.
Saturday and Sunday were good days for residents of the communities of both Waterhouse and Ewarton as they were the sites of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s Pocket Rocket Foundation 14th annual Christmas Treat.
Residents of Fraser-Pryce’s hometown of Waterhouse were the beneficiaries on Saturday and Ewarton, the hometown of her husband, Jason Pryce, enjoyed the festivities on Sunday.
The treat, which wasn’t held on Boxing Day for the first time in 14 years, was aided by a team of sponsors and volunteers who provided the residents with a variety of goodies ranging from food bags to toys and treats.
"We’re going to be giving our adults food bags courtesy of Grace Kennedy and then for the kids, they’ll be receiving toys and other goodies from Excelsior, Digicel, Nike and others,” said Fraser-Pryce, who also thanked Toyota Jamaica for providing transportation for the event.
The nine-time World Championships gold medallist said the aim was to bring some joy to the communities in the midst of a difficult year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also thanked her sponsors for helping to make it happen.
“It has been a crazy year for all of us because of the pandemic and I’m hoping that as a foundation we can bring some cheer to the community of Waterhouse and also Ewarton so I want to thank all my sponsors for what they do for me and my community year after year. We could not have done it without you guys, so thank you so much,” Fraser-Pryce said.
With about 400 care packages distributed and the resulting engagement from the community, the FastElaine Foundation’s treat in Banana Ground, Manchester on Saturday has been deemed a success; so much so that Elaine Thompson-Herah and her husband and partner, Derron, have been motivated to do even more.
Many members of the community turned out to receive packages containing household items and with the help of Mario Mitchell the councillor for the Bellefield Division that includes Banana Ground in the Manchester Northwestern constituency, packages were also distributed to other members of the community who were unable to show up.
Councillor Mitchell explained that Elaine decided to deliver packages to the elderly members of the community after having a conversation with her grandmother, ‘Miss Hyacinth’ who brought to her attention the fact that there were a number of people who were bedridden and were particularly vulnerable to the Covid-19 virus.
Otherwise, the event was well needed and was successful, Mitchell said.
“It was well-received. The children came out. The mothers came out. Banana Ground is a farming community so the farmers were in the fields but they came out later. There was music, there was food. All who came out got a token as well as a care package,” Mitchell said.
Notwithstanding her international fame, Elaine has always remained rooted in the community. Her family, including her father, uncles and grandmother, still live in Banana Ground and hence the residents were glad to have been beneficiaries of her initiative.
“They were happy to see Elaine. They were happy they had something, the care packages and educational toys for the kids as well as supermarket vouchers that were won by people who participated in a quiz about Elaine,” Derron told Sportsmax. TV.
The quiz, he said, was particularly enjoyable because so many from the community were able to correctly answer the questions about Elaine. In some instances, they were awarding prizes to as many as three people for each question.
In short, the people of Banana Ground loved it.
“I think it was a good idea and she did a very good thing, giving back to the community,” said a female resident of Banana Ground. “I know the community appreciated what she has done and I hope she keeps up the good work and I wish her all the best. I wish her long life and prosperity.”
Packages were also distributed to members of the nearby Bellefield community, who were grateful for the largesse.
Mitchell said he delivered care packages earlier but didn’t have enough “so her effort helped out a lot,” he said.
Derron said they were planning another similar event for Lakes Pen in Spanish Town, St Catherine but was unable to say when and where that would take place.
Preparations for a community treat in Elaine Thompson-Herah’s hometown of Banana Ground in Manchester on Saturday, have been progressing nicely with a number of sponsors coming on board to support the initiative.
The triple Tokyo Olympic champion, who was conferred with an Honorary Degree Doctor of Laws by the University of Technology on Sunday, and her husband Derron, had planned to host a treat for children in the community. However, on the advice from health experts amidst concern about the spread of the Covid-19 virus, those plans changed.
The couple, via the FastElaine Foundation, will now distribute care packages containing household items from tents set up in a ‘town-square’ type setting, Derron explained on Thursday.
The tents were donated by Elaine’s sponsors NCB and Flow and there will be sanitization stations, temperature checks. Masks will also be distributed should any of the residents show up not wearing.
The distribution of care packages is being scheduled to begin at about 1 pm and will last two-three hours as the organizers want to complete the process before it gets dark.
Herah revealed that in addition to NCB and Flow, a number of other sponsors have come on board. They include Honey Bun, Tradewinds Citrus Limited via their Tru Juice brand, Eve Foods and Red Bull. “I am really glad for their support, especially considering that they came on at short notice,” said Herah, who also revealed that other potential sponsors have been reaching out offering their support for the initiative that will be the first for FastElaine Foundation that will have its official launch in January 2022.
The Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) and Jamaica’s Minister of Sport Olivia Grange have expressed regret at the passing of Jamaican Olympian Bryon LaBeach, who died in California on Sunday, December 12, at the age of 91.
Triple Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Elaine Thompson-Herah was conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the University of Technology’s (UTech) virtual presentation of graduates on Sunday.
On December 3, 2021, Lamara Distin opened her collegiate season at the Woo Pig Classic with a leap of 1.86m that was good for a comfortable victory at the Woo Pig Classic in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Olympic bronze medalist, Megan Tapper, credits her background in gymnastics for instilling her with her trademark fighting spirit.
Speaking on the latest episode of On Point published on Friday on the SportsMax TV YouTube channel, Tapper says her time in gymnastics helped her develop the mindset she now has when competing on the track.
“Determination and grit are things that were ingrained in me from my days in gymnastics."
During her time as a student at St. Andrew High School, Tapper spent several years as a gymnast before she transitioned to athletics.
She said the main thing she gained from the experience was to push through any adversity, a characteristic she has often displayed in competition.
“If I learned anything, it was to push through when the road is extremely rocky; when you can’t see the end when you have no energy left. It is to just continue pushing and never ever giving up,” said Tapper, who created history when she won the bronze medal in Tokyo in the 100m hurdles. She is the first female Caribbean sprint hurdler to win an Olympic medal in the event.
The full interview can be seen on the SportsMax TV YouTube channel and on the Sportsmax app.
Tokyo Olympics 100m bronze medalist, Megan Tapper, says her support team helped her find motivation after she fell in the final at the 2019 Doha World Championships.
The diminutive sprint hurdler, who won national titles in 2016 and again in 2021, had improved significantly during the season when she ran what was then a new lifetime best of 12.63. However, after getting to the final in Doha, she hit the first hurdle and fell.
Speaking on the latest episode of On Point on the SportsMax TV YouTube channel, Tapper elaborated on the emotions she experienced during that moment on the track.
“Just complete and utter devastation. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe that the opportunity that I trained so long and hard for ended in such devastation. There’s no other word that can basically describe that moment,” Tapper said.
Tapper says those emotions also stemmed from the fact that she was in great shape and ready for the race.
“I’ve never been ready, up to that moment, for a race, the way I was ready for that final and unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the race,” she said.
In that moment, according to Tapper, she was unable to contain her emotions.
“The feeling was overwhelming. I wasn’t able to be the composed Megan that most of us know because the emotions were so raw and overwhelming,” said Tapper.
Afterwards, she said, she sought support from those close to her for support.
“I reached out to the various people who were in my circle at the time and they would say to me 'don’t worry about it, this is just another roadblock. You are still Megan, you are still capable, anything is still possible for you, shake it off and let’s go again. Talking to my support team was how the motivation came back for me,” said Tapper.
The full interview can be seen on the SportsMax TV YouTube channel.
Olympic gold medalists Elaine Thompson-Herah and Hansle Parchment have been named among the nominees for the 2021 RJR Sports Foundation Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year Awards set for January 21, 2022.
Due mainly to the ongoing pandemic, the Awards will be a made-for-television event instead of the usual gala.
Thompson-Herah will likely be the favourite to add to the award she won in 2016 when she became the first woman to win an Olympic sprint double since 1988. At the Tokyo Olympics, Thompson-Herah won three gold medals (100m, 200m and 4x100m).
She won the 100m in an Olympic record of 10.61 and the 200m in a national record of 21.53, the second-fastest time in history. Following the Olympics, she ran 10.54, the second-fastest time ever run by a woman, at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon on her way to winning the Diamond League title.
However, she is among a stacked field of women who also performed at exceptionally high levels through the year, up to the end of November.
Chief among them is her perennial rival Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who was second in the 100m in Tokyo and was also a member of the gold-medal-winning 4x100m team. The Pocket Rocket also created history of her own in Tokyo when she became the only woman to win medals in the 100m at four consecutive Olympic Games.
She also ran a personal best of 10.60 which made her the third-fastest woman in history.
Shericka Jackson is also among the nominees for winning bronze in the 100m in Tokyo, gold in the 4x100m and a 4x400m bronze. She also ran a personal best 10.76 in the 100m.
Megan Tapper, another nominee, created history as the first woman from the Caribbean to win a medal in the Olympics 100m hurdles. This, after she surprisingly won her second national title in June.
Last, but definitely not least of the five female nominees of West Indies Women cricketer Stafanie Taylor, whose consistent performance with bat and ball saw her ranked among the best female cricketers in the world. She also became one of only three women to score 5000 ODI runs in the history of women’s cricket.
Parchment, who stunned the world to defeat American Grant Holloway and win gold in the 110m hurdles at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, leads the male nominees, that also includes fellow sprint hurdler and national champion Ronald Levy, who won bronze in Tokyo.
Also among the male nominees are West Indies and Jamaica batsman Nkrumah Bonner and Rally Cross driver Fraser McConnell.
The nominees for People’s Choice Performance of the Year include Mikhail Antonio’s wonder strike against the United States at the national stadium in Kingston and McConnell’s historic win in the Nordic Rally Cross in February.
The other nominees are Tapper’s surprise bronze medal in the 100m hurdles in Tokyo, Parchment’s golden run in Tokyo and Thompson-Herah’s blistering 10.54 run in Oregon on August 21.
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