— Yaw, Edghill shine in junior categories

GUYANA and West Indies cricketers Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Shemaine Campbelle won the National Sports Commission’s (NSC) Male and Female Sportsman and Sportswoman-of-the-Year award after deliberations by the selection panel which was made up of media house representatives as well as sports administrators/commentators.

In the race for junior sportsman and sportswoman-of-the-year award, track and field athlete Jason Yaw won the junior sportsman award, while Chelsea Edghill won the female version.
For the male sportsman-of-the-year award, Chanderpaul, who was nominated by the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) and the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) garnered seven of the 14 panelists’ nods ahead of powerlifter Winston Stoby who got five votes. The other contestant was 2012 Olympian Winston George who got two votes.
In the race for runners-up sportsman, Stoby who won a world masters gold medal last year while breaking a world record won ahead of George and squash player Alexander Arjoon.
In the race for the Sportswoman-of-the-Year award, Guyana’s distance `queen’ Alika Morgan was nominated by the Athletics Association of Guyana, Rising Stars Athletics Club and the national Paralympic Committee of Guyana, while hockey player Alysia Xavier was nominated by the Guyana Table Tennis Association and the Guyana Hockey Board of Control.
The Guyana Squash Association nominated Women’s international squash players association’s number 19-ranked Nicolette Fernandes.
However, it was Kaieteur News’ Claude David who was a member of the selection panel who nominated Shemaine Campbelle and this nomination was seconded by National Communications Network’s Aletha Grant-Charles.
When the ballots were counted, Campbelle got four votes, Fernandes two, Xavier five and Morgan three.
A second round of voting was held to determine between Campbelle and Xavier, and Campbell secured 10 votes to come out on top.
In the race for the runner-up place, Xavier secured 13 of the 14 votes cast.
For the Junior Sportsman-of-the-Year award, Yaw received eight votes as against Guyana Table Tennis Association’s nominee Sherman Britton’s four votes and Guyana Squash Association’s Nyron Joseph’s one vote.
The runner-up spot went to Britton who received 10 votes as against Guyana Badminton Association’s Narayan Ramdhani (three votes) and Joseph (one vote).
For the Junior Sportswoman-of-the-Year, GTTA’s Chelsea Edghill received five votes, Guyana Badminton Association’s Priyanna Ramdhani got one vote and Athletics Association of Guyana’s Cassie George received five votes.
A second round of voting was held and Edghill received eight votes and George six.
For the runner-up spot, George received 13 votes.
The Sports Team-of-the-Year award went to the Guyana Squash Association’s senior team which received eight of the 14 votes, while the Guyana Powerlifting senior team received five and the Junior Carifta team one.
The non-print sport journalist award was won by Guyana Times’ Avenesh Ramzan with nine votes after only securing six in the first round of voting where Esan Griffith secured six as well.
However in the second round, Griffith only managed to secure four.
For the Sports Journalist (print award) Stabroek News’ Emerson Campbell (eight votes) prevailed over Guyana Chronicle’s Calvin Roberts (four votes).
The Sports Association award went to the Guyana Table Tennis Association which got seven votes as against the Guyana Squash Association’s five.
The Most Improved Sports Association award went to the Guyana Boxing Association with 12 votes while the Guyana Squash Association got one.
The Female Sports Official award went to Guyana Police Force’s Inspector Amanda Hermonstine with 10 votes as against Guyana Hockey Board of Control’s nominee Lavern Fraser-Thomas who secured three votes.
Guyana Table Tennis Association’s president Godfrey Munroe with eight votes won the Male Sports Official award.
Disabled athlete Gibran Sarfaraz won the Special Award for Persons with Disability.

(By Michael DaSilva)