Sprint­ing sen­sa­tions Shani­qua Bas­combe and Devin Au­gus­tine shared the spot­light on Sun­day night at the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion awards be­ing named the Youth Sports­woman and Sports­man of the Year.

The 16-year-olds were ho­n­oured along with na­tion­al cy­cling duo Teneil Camp­bell and Nicholas Paul, who emerged with the se­nior ver­sion of the awards in the 57th edi­tion of the an­nu­al cer­e­mo­ny which due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was broad­cast­ed on tele­vi­sion mi­nus the live au­di­ence which Dr Ter­ry Ali, chair­man of the foun­da­tion, in his ad­dress said a de­ci­sion dri­ven by our so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty

"We, the mem­bers of First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion, along with our spon­sor First Cit­i­zens, saw this tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion as the best al­ter­na­tive in these cir­cum­stances to still ho­n­our our coun­try's sport­ing he­roes."

Young sprint­ers Bas­combe of Cougars Track and Field Club and Au­gus­tus of the Point Fortin New Jets (PFNJ)won ac­claim at last year's Carif­ta Games in the Cay­man Is­lands.

Bas­combe, who for the sec­ond straight year picked up the ju­nior women's award, was sec­ond in the Girls' Un­der-17 100 me­tres be­fore com­ing back in the 200m event to reach the top of the podi­um at Tru­man Bood­en Com­plex. She then pushed her medal haul to three af­ter she ran the sec­ond leg in the 4x100m re­lay fi­nal to help T&T to the run­ner-spot be­hind Ja­maica.

Bas­combe said, "I am very hum­bled and I hope I can con­tin­ue to do my coun­try proud in time to come. I know rep­re­sent­ing T&T is a priv­i­lege and I will do my best to get on top of the podi­um in 2021 at the Carif­ta Games in Guyana. Many thanks go out to my coach Kelvin Nan­coo who has been very pa­tient and good to me and I hope he nev­er changes his vi­sion or his mind. We are a suc­cess­ful team.

"In­deed, I am hap­py to win the 'Triple Crown' for the sec­ond time and I thank God for that. I am go­ing to work hard­er than ever with the Olympics and Ju­nior Com­mon­wealth Games like­ly in 2021. This has rekin­dled my en­thu­si­asm."

The "Triple Crown" Bas­combe is re­fer­ring to is win­ning the youth Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) award, the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and now, the First Cit­i­zens' awards which Au­gus­tine, al­so achieved.

He was gold­en in the Boys' U-17 100m dash at Carif­ta when he set a per­son­al best of 10.62 sec­onds. He came back to win a sec­ond medal, this time sil­ver in the U-17 4x100m re­lay.

A sur­prised Au­gus­tine said, "I am very grate­ful and hum­bled by this award. This has giv­en me the im­pe­tus and dri­ve to train hard­er in 2021. I thank my par­ents for their sup­port and I want to spe­cial­ly thank my coach Er­ic Mc­Crae and for his pa­tience with me, es­pe­cial­ly when I did not want to train.

"He is a good guy when you get to know him. He is de­ter­mined and help­ful. I hope my coach will con­tin­ue his lega­cy with PFNJ. But, I re­al­ly want to win the NAAA U-20 Top Track Ath­lete Award in 2021."

Dr Ali, in his wel­come ad­dress, be­fore the pro­gramme in­tro­duced the nom­i­nees for the var­i­ous awards, touched on the coro­n­avirus which forced this year's event which was pre­vi­ous­ly card­ed to be held on March 21 at Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) Port-of-Spain, to be recon­cep­tu­alised.

"I know the en­tire world is go­ing through a chal­leng­ing time cop­ing with dif­fi­cul­ties that the COVID-19 has placed on us. Cir­cum­stances be­yond our con­trol have opened our eyes and or hearts to as­sist those in need and show em­pa­thy by those af­fect­ed by this pan­dem­ic," said Dr Ali, who al­so shared his ex­cite­ment in host­ing the first-ever com­bined award cer­e­mo­ny fea­tur­ing the new in­ductees and the 2019 se­nior and ju­nior ath­letes.

"I have the great ho­n­our and plea­sure of con­grat­u­lat­ing all of our Hall of Fame in­ductees and the com­bine 106 youth, se­nior and spe­cial Olympic ath­letes. I would like the ded­i­ca­tion, per­se­ver­ance, hu­mil­i­ty, love for sports and most of all the love coun­try that has been the hall­mark of all of Hall of Fame in­ductees to be fea­tured in all our me­dia plat­forms. This way all of our cit­i­zens, young and old, will fol­low their ex­am­ple and in so do­ing en­rich our na­tion es­pe­cial­ly at a time like this.

"In 2021, we will stage the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, we must leave a lega­cy for our young peo­ple to em­u­late. We must en­cour­age them to be high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, dis­ci­plined and liv­ing a life of ex­cel­lence. Let this be a last­ing lega­cy for the en­tire world to see. We can set the stage for our na­tion to be pow­ered by this lega­cy. A lega­cy of restora­tion and de­vel­op­ment of our young peo­ple. A lega­cy that would re­unite our vi­sion of con­tin­ued sport­ing suc­cess­es.

"If we can as­pire to­geth­er then to­geth­er we will achieve great­ness."

Spe­cial Olympians Joshua May­nard (bas­ket­ball), Mar­lon Nar­i­nesingh (boc­ce), Dami­an Mar­quis (pow­er­lift­ing), La­toya Charles (ath­let­ics), Aaron Ben Ali (eques­tri­an), John Laldeo (floor hock­ey), Dono­van Garib (swim­ming), were al­so salut­ed on the night for ex­hibit­ing the true mean­ing of 'ded­i­ca­tion and spir­it' in sports.