Cy­clist Nicholas Paul and track and field ath­lete Michelle-Lee Ahye were crowned the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee’s (TTOC) Se­nior Sports­man and Sports­woman of the Year re­spec­tive­ly for 2021. The awards cer­e­mo­ny took place vir­tu­al­ly due to the pan­dem­ic for the sec­ond year straight.

The two ath­letes pre­vailed from among sev­er­al oth­er top per­form­ers who were out­stand­ing for T&T over the past year and were ho­n­oured at the TTOC’s 27th An­nu­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny - themed this year as “The Glass in not Half-Emp­ty” - that was broad­cast via video-con­fer­enc­ing plat­form Zoom, the TTOC’s YouTube chan­nel, its Face­book page, and its web­site (https://www.ttoc.org) on Wednes­day evening.

It was Ahye’s fourth clinch of the crown (2016-18, 2021) while Paul, 25, claimed the men's edi­tion of the ho­n­our for the sec­ond time (2019, 2021) while dou­bling up as the TTOC Peo­ple’s Choice Award win­ner, his third time top­ping this cat­e­go­ry (2018, 2019 & 2021).

Since the on­set of the glob­al pan­dem­ic caused by the COVID-19 virus in March 2020, it is now the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year that the TTOC has host­ed its pres­ti­gious gala awards cer­e­mo­ny vir­tu­al­ly.

Paul, the cur­rent world record-hold­er for the Men’s Fly­ing 200m, earned the top male award based on his sil­ver medal per­for­mance in the Men’s one-kilo­me­tre time-tri­al at the UCI Tis­sot World Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onship in Roubaix, France back in Oc­to­ber. He was al­so sixth in the Men’s Sprint at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Sprint­er Ahye, 29, a na­tive of Care­nage has deemed the top fe­male based on her ninth-place in the Women’s 100 me­tre-dash at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics when she missed mak­ing the fi­nal by a few thou­sandths of a sec­ond. The 55-minute event - pro­duced by Wen­dell Con­stan­tine an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the TTOC - al­so saw swim­mer Nikoli Black­man earn­ing his sec­ond con­sec­u­tive lien on the Ju­nior Sports­man of the Year award while To­bag­on­ian na­tive Rae-Anne Serville copped the Ju­nior Sports­woman of the Year.

West In­dies se­nior women’s vice-cap­tain, crick­eter Anisa Mo­hammed, 33, copped the Fu­ture is Fe­male award while hep­tath­lete Tyra Git­tens - the Tokyo 2020 Olympic long jump fi­nal­ist whose dy­nam­ic and en­er­getic posts have in­spired a size­able In­sta­gram fol­low­ing - is the TTOC Sports Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year. Vet­er­an sports ad­min­is­tra­tor and se­nior coun­sel El­ton Prescott, a for­mer TTOC ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber who pro­posed the Alexan­der B Chap­man award back in 2009 - has gained the nod for that same prize this year.

Paula-Mae Weekes, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go ad­dressed the vir­tu­al au­di­ence and de­liv­ered the TTOC Pa­tron’s Ad­dress. Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Sham­fa Cud­joe gave con­grat­u­la­to­ry re­marks while T&T's Olympic Games hock­ey um­pire Ayan­na Mc­Clean, who was be­stowed with the Gold­en Whis­tle by the In­ter­na­tion­al Hock­ey Board (FIH) ear­li­er this month, hav­ing of­fi­ci­at­ed in her 100th match as an in­ter­na­tion­al um­pire – de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress.

Pres­i­dent of the TTOC, Bri­an Lewis set the stage for the 27th An­nu­al Awards event by re­view­ing the ex­pe­ri­ences of ath­letes and of­fi­cials in 2021 and ex­pressed his ap­pre­ci­a­tion to all as the TTOC closed the cur­tain on its 75th An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions.

TTOC 2021 Awards Ho­n­our Roll

Sports­man of Year - Nicholas Paul (Cy­cling)

Sports­woman of the Year - Michelle-Lee Ahye (Ath­let­ics)

Ju­nior Sports­man - Nikoli Black­man (swim­mer)

Ju­nior Sports Woman - Rae-Anne Serville (Ath­let­ics)

Fu­ture is Fe­male award - Anisa Mo­hammed - (Crick­et)

Peo­ple's Choice Award - Nicholas Paul - (Cy­cling)

Alexan­der B Chap­man Award - El­ton Prescott SC (At­tor­ney)

TTOC Sports Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year - Tyra Git­tens (Ath­let­ics)