By Neto Baptiste
The Ministry of Sports will forge ahead with plans to recognise national athletes who would have excelled in both 2020 and 2021, despite the low response by associations to make nominations naming their top performers within the specified period.
This is according to Director of Sports and former national sprinter, Heather Samuel Daley, who said the ministry believes it is only right to recognise the few who have been nominated.
“Obviously we are still talking about it but we are definitely getting the plaques to appreciate the efforts made by the athletes who would have done well in 2021 despite the circumstances arising from Covid and so that is the intention of the ministry and while we are not planning a ceremony per sé, we are going to still be dedicating our time to honour these athletes who have made such a significant contribution in 2021,” she said.
Nominated are Ambassador Kimberly Percival and Randy Christopher from bodybuilding, fast bowler Alzarri Joseph from cricket, along with sailing’s Tiger Tyson in the senior category with Emily Gaillard and Alistair Knoblauch in the juniors.
Also nominated in the senior category were Cejhae Greene and Joella Lloyd, while Ajani Daley and Alyssa Dyett were named in the juniors’ category by the athletics association.
Daley thanked the associations for taking the time to make the submissions while urging others to get on board.
“It’s always going to be disappointing when you don’t get the full support of the associations and I can’t say I know exactly what are the reasons for not making the submissions but I am grateful for those that would have made their submissions in bodybuilding, sailing, athletics and cricket. We do appreciate the fact they would have done that [made the submissions] and we are definitely going to be giving them their plaques sometime, hopefully before the end of this year,” the director said.
It is still unclear, however, when and where the nominated athletes will be recognised.
In September, the Ministry of Sports announced that the ceremony to recognise top performers from 2020 and 2021 had been postponed due to the low number of nominations. The deadline for nominations was also extended but yielded little results.