Cycling star Paul rises to the top at First Citizens awards

QUICKLY becoming the country’s most dominant athlete, cyclist Nicholas Paul put another feather in his cap when he captured the First Citizens Sports Foundation Sportsman of the Year Award.

The 59th edition of the prestigious awards was hosted by hurdler Jehue Gordon, who won the award in 2013. It was prerecorded and televised on Saturday night.

The 23-year-old Olympian and world-record-setting sprint cyclist also won the award in 2019.

Tyra Gittens was named Sportswoman of the year for the first time.

Nikoli Blackman was crowned the Youth Sportsman of the Year 2021 for the consecutive time and another first-time winner Jordane Dookie received the Youth Sportswoman of the Year 2021 title.

There were two other awards, the Lystra Lewis Award and the Jeffrey Stollmeyer awards.

The Lystra Lewis award is given to the most outstanding team over the past year, which TT’s 4x400m relay team earned for its eighth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics. The runners included the late Deon Lendore, Jereem Richards, Machel Cedenio and Dwight St Hillaire. The Jeffrey Stollmeyer Award, which is given to the best performing sports administrative body, was won by the Tennis Association of TT.

Sports Minister Shamfa Cudjoe congratulated the awardees for their “unrelenting spirit, sense of pride and purpose, and the larger-than-life persona they exude…”

She said, “You are our true heroes, who serve as a symbol of hope, perseverance, courage, and strength, not only to our youth but to our nation.”

The senior finalists included Paul, Gittens, cyclist Teneil Campbell, who won the Senior Sportswoman of the Year award in 2019, recently-retired sailor Andrew Lewis, 400m runner Jereem Richards, boxer Nigel Paul, rower Felice Chow, swimmer Dylan Carter, footballer Kennya “Yaya” Cordner and netball player Samantha Wallace. The top-eight youth finalists included Blackman, Dookie, chess players Alan-Safar Ramoutar and Zara La Fleur, cyclist Ryan D’Abreau, sprinters Shakeem Mc Kay and Janae De Gannes and volleyball player Natassia Baptiste.

Last year, Paul captured a hat-trick of gold medals at the UCI Nations Cup in Cali, Colombia, winning the 1km time trial, sprint and keirin races. He also placed sixth in the men’s sprint and 12th in the keirin at the Tokyo Olympics, followed by a silver medal in the 1km time trial at the UCI Track World Championships in France. The result in France ended a 30-year drought for TT after Gene Samuel last captured a medal (bronze) in the same 1km time trial in 1991.

Gittens’ award comes following her Olympic debut in Tokyo. Gittens, 23, competed in the women’s long jump final and was named the top female athlete for Texas A&M at the NCAA Track and Field Championships. More recently, she cleared 1.89m to win a silver medal in the women’s high jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Alabama earlier this month.