By Neto Baptiste
Director of Sports Heather Samuel-Daley has urged national associations to spend time and care when completing the relevant nomination forms for next year’s Vita Malt National Sports Awards slated for February 15th.
Daley – who won the top female award in 1993, 1994 and 1995 – said forms are often uncompleted and disorganized, which usually complicates the process for the judges.
“I am asking the associations, this time around, to make it easier on your association and to make it easier as well for the judges to decipher. There are times when we get forms and because we know and follow sports, we would know that information is missing and when you call to ask if they are sure that’s what they want to send in and that additional information is there that you can include, they don’t make the adjustments. But we want to make sports awards fair so we are asking the associations to provide all of the relevant information – meaning the judges are only looking at performances between January 1 and November 30, 2019,” she said.
The sports ministry, according to Samuel, distributed nomination forms and other pertinent information to almost 30 associations last week. A deadline of December 6th has been set for the return of the nomination forms.
Swimmer Stefano Mitchell and shot-putter Jess St. John were the senior male and female winners, with kite-surfer Tiger Tyson and sprinter Sonia Jones capturing the boys and girls junior awards.
Daley expressed confidence in the judges.
“Their contract was for three years and they are in their final year of judging. If at the end of the year there is a discussion whether or not we shouldn’t hold onto them, then that discussion will be had and we will compile another judging panel, but I am very satisfied and have always been satisfied with our judges. I think they have a very hard task to do and I definitely would not want to be in their shoes because going through the forms every year is always a difficult decision,” she said.
The judges’ panel consists of Ted O. Daley, Paula C.M. Lee, Sybil Walling, Samuel Roberts and Carl Joseph.