By Neto Baptiste
National athletes who would have had some degree of success throughout the coronavirus-affected 2020 judging period for the National Sports Awards, will not be eligible for tangible prizes during next February’s National Sports Honours to be put on by the Ministry of Education, Sports and the Creative Industries.
This was clarified by sports minister, Daryll Matthew, who said the National Sports Honours was created to specifically honour those who would have made meaningful contributions to sports and development over the years.
“There is really nothing to rank them against in terms of whether or not they would have emerged as, for example, sportsman of the year. So, participating in an event this year where you run a race and come sixth, for example, then how do we honour that so it is not a participation ceremony?” he said.
In a recent statement, the ministry highlighted the fact that the new ceremony will take an “unconventional format”.
The released identified individuals who have contributed sterling service to sports in their respective disciplines, over the years as the ones who will stand in the spotlight during this award ceremony.
“We are not against if regular individuals want to nominate persons, but we prefer it coming through the associations. It is easier to manage coming through the associations because what we don’t want is, let’s say football sends Baptiste and then Parham decides they are going to nominate Daryl Greenaway for football so we don’t want two nominations from the same sport. We prefer it comes through the association and then the association can determine who the association who are the two persons they will send in terms of male and female,” the sports minister said.
Nominations for the awards slated for February 13, 2021 opened on December 1 and will close on December 31.