… Williams, Straker win juniors
GUYANA and West Indies cricketer Ramnaresh Sarwan and world-rated squash player Nicolette Fernandes copped the National Sports Commission’s (NSC) 2009 senior male and female sports awards while cyclist Geron Williams and track athlete Javina Straker won the respective junior titles. Yesterday, a panel consisting of 14 members, made of members of the media, the NSC and the private sector, met at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and voted on who were the Most Outstanding Sportsman, Sportswoman (senior and junior), Male and Female Sports Personalities, Most Outstanding Sports Team, Sports Association, Sports Coach and Most Outstanding Sports Journalist (print and non-print and sports photographer) for the year 2009.
After two rounds of voting, Sarwan who played 11 Test matches and scored 870 runs at an average of 51.18 with his highest score being 291 was voted Sportsman-of-the-Year 2009.
In the 11 matches, Sarwan also registered four centuries and one half-century.
Sarwan also played 16 One Day Internationals and scored 445 runs with his highest score being 74 and recorded an average of 34.23.
In the T20 version of the game, Sarwan played nine matches, accumulated 184 runs with his highest score being 59 for an average of 36.80.
Fernandes, on the other hand, jumped 161 places in the Women’s International Squash Players Association’s rankings during last year after being out of action for two years, due to a knee injury.
Fernandes who started her international campaign at 249 last year, closed off her 2009 campaign at 88.
Her greatest achievement being the winner of the Greek Open in December.
Of the 26 matches she played during the year, she won 18 and lost eight.
Apart from winning the women’s title at the Caribbean squash championship last year, she also piloted the team to a silver medal in the team championship.
It took just one round of voting for Sarwan to be declared winner of the Sportsman-of-the-Year award as seven of the 14 panellists found favour with Sarwan while five voted track athlete Cleveland Forde, one for `Big’ John Arlington Edwards of the Guyana Power Lifting Association and another for professional boxer Leon Moore.
Forde, the winner of the first two legs of the annual South American 10K Road Race was subsequently voted runner-up in this category.
For the Sportswoman-of-the-Year award, Fernandes secured eight votes while track athlete Alika Morgan who won the award last year ahead of Fernandes secured eight votes while Morgan got three and professional boxer Shondell Alfred secured two. The other nominees for this category were squash player Keisha Jeffrey and footballer Tricia Munroe.
Morgan subsequently won the race for the runner-up in this category.
In the race for the junior awards, it took three rounds of voting before Williams was finally named Junior Sportsman-of-the-Year.
In the first round of voting, there were nine nominees and Williams secured a mere three votes like badminton player Narayan Ramdhani, while squash player Jason Ray Khalil secured four votes, cricketer Trevon Griffith and track athlete Recardo Martin one each.
In the second round of voting, only Williams, Khalil and Ramdhani were the contestants and Williams secured six votes, while Khalil and Ramdhani secured four each.
Because Williams did not have a majority, there was a third round of voting and Williams prevailed by securing seven votes while Khalil and Ramdhani secured three each. One of the 14 panellists abstained. Khalil subsequently defeated the rest of the field for the runner-up spot in this category.
The winners of the other categories are as follows: (photographer) Franklyn Wilson of Kaieteur News; (Sports Journalist non-print) Iva Wharton of NCN; Sports Journalist (print) Rawle Toney of Stabroek News; (Sports Association) Guyana Rugby Football Union; (Most Improved Association) Guyana Power Lifting Association; (Female Sports Personality) Dr. Karen Pilgrim; (Male Sports Personality) Hilbert Foster; (Sports Coach) Laurie Adonis and (Best Sports Team) Guyana Rugby Football Association’s Men’s Seven’s Team;