Athletics Association Withdraws Original Sports Awards Nominee

The Antigua & Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA) has changed its senior male nominee for this month’s Vita Malt National Sports Awards.
This was confirmed by President of the ABAA and former national athlete, Everton “Mano” Cornelius, who said that upon review of their original nomination, the body’s executive arm thought it best to withdraw and replace the original submission.
The association, last week, revealed it had nominated former national sprinter, Miguel Francis as its nominee in the men’s category for the annual awards.
Francis, who switched his allegiance to Great Britain this year, is the reigning Sportsman of Year after winning the accolade for 2015.
“Now, we are looking at the total picture in terms of the disrespect that was meted out to the government, the disrespect that was meted out to the athletics association and just looking at it in a total sense and say this cannot be right. It cannot be right at the end of the day and if he wins and gets $10,000 with all that went down, it just would not go well with the general public,” he said.
Cornelius, who revealed that Francis has been replaced by national sprinter, Cejhae Greene as their male nominee, said their initial decision was made purely based on stats and what happened on the track.
“We looked at it seriously. I had asked the executive to look at it again and give me a judgment on the whole thing and we unanimously agreed that we will resend the nominee. We are looking at it from a different angle because I think when we looked at it first, it was just on the basis of what the person had done in terms of stats, basically,” he said.
The association’s female nominee is Jess St John with Joella Lloyd and Kalique St Jean nominated as the female and male junior nominees. Leslie Williams was nominated as the association’s administrator of the year.