Sean Nero

Shot put­ter Cleopa­tra Borel, 35, has copped her fourth Sports­woman of the Year award in 12 years, while swim­mer George Bovell, 31, has emerged as Sports­man of Year, for the sec­ond time in a decade.

The top ho­n­ours were pre­sent­ed to the cham­pi­on ath­letes at the 52nd First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion Sports­man and Sports­woman of the Year 2014 with the theme "Cel­e­brat­ing Our Po­ten­tial" held at Queen's Hall in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day.

Bovell took the spot­light at the glitzy af­fair to bask in an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment of sport­ing glo­ry, while etch­ing his name again in­to his­to­ry to the adu­la­tion of the en­er­getic au­di­ence, which in­clud­ed Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona and wife Reema Car­mona and Sport Min­is­ter Brent San­cho and wife Suzie San­cho.

Borel was un­able to at­tend. She is in Cu­ba en­gaged in spe­cial­ty train­ing with her coach Is­mael Lopez Mas­tra­pa. She was rep­re­sent­ed by her moth­er Mar­celle Borel.

It was an­oth­er ma­jor re­ward for Borel, who as a young girl grow­ing up in Ma­yaro, en­joyed a savoury di­et that con­sist­ed a hearty mix of fresh fish and ground pro­vi­sions and whose in­nate de­sire to ex­cel was nev­er cur­tailed by the lack of prop­er train­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

That lev­el of con­vic­tion guid­ed her de­ci­sion not to re­tire from com­pet­i­tive sports, pre­ma­ture­ly al­most three years ago.

Cit­ing Borel's ster­ling per­for­mances for the year un­der re­view, the Sports­woman of the Year an­nounce­ment came as no sur­prise to sport­ing pun­dits, how­ev­er.

She opened the year as a cham­pi­on with a sil­ver medal at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow Scot­land back in Au­gust and turned up the heat, to clinch gold at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Mex­i­co three months lat­er.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion and even­tu­al ac­com­plish­ment at the CAC Games bore spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance to Borel�it was her third gold medal at the event in six years.

These achieve­ments led to an­oth­er amaz­ing chap­ter in her ca­reer, un­der­scor­ing why she was ranked among the best in the world.

Back on lo­cal soil, Borel was be­stowed with re­wards from the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), Se­nior Sports­woman of the Year in De­cem­ber, and in Jan­u­ary, Se­nior Fe­male Ath­lete by her rep­re­sent­ing na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion–the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA).

Bovell en­joyed an­oth­er great sea­son of com­pe­ti­tion in 2014. At the FI­NA World Cup se­ries, he cap­tured nine medals. Two of those medals came in the men's 100 me­tres in­di­vid­ual med­ley in Do­ha, Qatar and Dubai, UAE (Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates). He earned the third, com­pet­ing in the 50m freestyle in Sin­ga­pore.

His pref­er­ence for gold was clear at the CAC Games, too. Com­pet­ing in the 50m freestyle at that cham­pi­onships he got the bet­ter of Ren­zo Tjon-A-Joe (Suri­name) and Hanser Gar­cia (Cu­ba). Bovell al­so earned bronze in the 50m back­stroke be­hind Venezue­lans Al­bert Subi­rats and Robin­son Moli­na.

Borel and Bovell on Fri­day night emerged tops from a list of 51 ath­letes in 31 dis­ci­plines.

They were short­list­ed among the top 10 ath­letes. They were: Michael Alexan­der (box­ing) Moni­fa Sealy (golf) Christo­pher George (ju­do) Adri­an Brown (pow­er­lift­ing) Yoland Mc In­tyre (pow­er­lift­ing) Roger Daniel (shoot­ing), Rheann Chung (ta­ble ten­nis) and Keshorn Wal­cott (javelin).

The precincts of Queen's Hall again erupt­ed with thun­der­ous ap­plause when the na­tion­al se­nior women's foot­ball team was de­clared win­ner of the Lystra D Lewis Award for Team of the Year, then for the Jef­frey Stollmey­er memo­r­i­al award win­ner, the NAAA as the best per­form­ing na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. It was the fourth win for the NAAA since the award was in­tro­duced 20 years ago.

For the 2014 pre­sen­ta­tion, how­ev­er, the Sports Foun­da­tion de­cid­ed to split the cat­e­go­ry. The NAAA won un­der the ban­ner large, while the Tar­get Archery As­so­ci­a­tion earned the Stollmey­er award in the medi­um class.

A video trib­ute to for­mer hock­ey play­er and sport ad­min­is­tra­tor Flor­rie Kelshall, 99, earned her a stand­ing ova­tion. Dur­ing the re­cep­tion, she was seen danc­ing to the DJs healthy of­fer­ing of pul­sat­ing so­ca mu­sic.

Dr Kei­th Clif­ford, chair­man of the Foun­da­tion said it re­mained an ho­n­our to pay homage to the na­tion's out­stand­ing ath­letes who through hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and dis­ci­pline con­tin­ue to make this coun­try proud.

"For the past 52 years, the Sport Foun­da­tion has been charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of en­sur­ing that the most de­sired tro­phies in lo­cal sports are pre­sent­ed to the men and women who have sur­passed their col­leagues with their achieve­ments dur­ing the years un­der re­view," he said.

"We take our man­date ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous­ly and as we con­tin­ue to build on our re­la­tion­ship with the na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies for sport, we are ever mind­ful of the chal­lenges faced by many of our na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

"The First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion is ready to play, as it al­ways has, a ma­jor role in en­sur­ing that sport in our beloved re­pub­lic gets its just due, and that our ath­letes are sup­port­ed max­i­mal­ly as they con­tin­ue to bring glo­ry to us all. Our theme for this event is apt, es­pe­cial­ly as we pre­pare for the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.

"We hold much hope for an­oth­er great per­for­mance by our T&T ath­letes and ex­hort them to give of their best in their prepa­ra­tion; recog­nis­ing the im­por­tant role that sport and their achieve­ments play in unit­ing a na­tion. More good comes from sport than from any oth­er en­deav­our."