Golfer Sachin Kumar and footballer Ke'die Johnson are among T&T's leading youth athletes that will be in line for top honours when the First Citizens Sports Foundation stages its annual Youth Awards on Friday to honour the best of 2016.
The gala-ceremony will be held at the Trinidad Hilton, Port-of-Spain, and will feature nominees in both boys' and girls' categories in a number of sporting disciplines including badminton, chess, cycling, football, golf, hockey, rugby, squash, swimming, table-tennis, tennis, track and field, basketball, kayaking, cricket, karate, sailing, surfing, to name a few.
Previous winners include Cherelle Thompson (swimming) and Christian Homer (swimming) in 2010; Monifa Sealy (golf); in 2011 Quincy Alexander and Jodi Goodridge (cycling) & Machel Cedeno (track & field) in 2012, and swimming duo, Shanntol Ince and Dylan Carter for the 2013 season. In 2014 it was swimmer Dylan Carter and chess player Javanna Smith and in 2015, sprinter Kalifa St Fort and swimmer Jerron Thompson.
Today, Guardian Media Limited lists profiles of some of the nominees:
FOOTBALL(T&T Football Association)
Jaydon Prowell
Wild celebrations endured when Prowell scored the second of a double for T&T in a 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Bermuda–one of three goals he bagged during last year's CFU Caribbean Under-17 Championship on home soil: a great complement to the forward's performances for St Anthony's College, which he helped to second place in the Secondary Schools Football League's North Zone Intercol competition.
Ke'die Johnson
An integral member of the women's youth football development programmes in T&T, Johnson made an impact at the senior level as she helped St Augustine FC to second place in the T&T Women's Football League's Premier Division and also earned the Secondary Schools Football League's women's player of the year accolade for her role in St Augustine Secondary's National Intercol, East Zone League and East Zone Intercol title successes.
HOCKEY(T&T Hockey Board)
Teague Marcano
Definitely punching above his weight, Marcano appeared as a 15-year-old at the Pan American Men's Under-21 Championship in Canada–where he helped T&T to a very impressive fifth-place finish–and he subsequently guided Malvern to the national under-19 championship title.
Felicia King
King, 17, was a member of the senior national women's team that finished second in its FIH Hockey World League first round tournament in Salamanca, Mexico, where she scored one goal in a 13-0 opening game mauling of Guatemala; King also featured for the sixth-placed Trinidad and Tobago under-21s at the Pan American Junior Women's Championship at home.
GOLF(T&T Golf Association)
Sachin Kumar
Kumar has been marching along to his own beat on the golf course and in 2016, he triumphed in the T&T Open at St Andrew's Golf Club in Moka, via a play-off over Clint Alfred; he also won the boys 16-17 title at the Caribbean Amateur Junior Championships in Christ Church, Barbados by seven strokes–with a one under par total of 215–and he helped the T&T senior men to third place at the Caribbean Amateur Championships in Nassau, The Bahamas.
Serena Mackenzie
Mackenzie, 16, achieved third-place in the girls 17 and under division at the Caribbean Amateur Junior Championships in Barbados and later played with the T&T senior women at the Caribbean Amateur Championships at the One&Only Ocean Club in Nassau; she also finished third at other open events–the TATIL Invitational and the Svelty Ladies Open–and won the girls 16-17 division at the Republic Bank Junior Open.
GYMNASTICS(T&T Gymnastics Federation)
Isaiah Hall
Even as gymnastics has become an established discipline in T&T, development is still extremely important and the efforts of Isaiah Hall, 16, offered plenty of optimism for the future; at the TTGF Championships he won the national men's overall title with 52.2001 points thanks to gold medals in the floor exercise, parallel bars and horizontal bar, along with a silver medal on the rings, a bronze on the pommel horse and a fourth-place finish on the vault.
JUDO(Judo T&T)
Luke Walker
Excellent hand-eye co-ordination appears to be a given with Luke Walker, especially as a youthful frontline pannist with the Invaders Steel Orchestra: it was also useful at the USA Judo Junior Olympic National and International Championships in Irving, Texas, where he became T&T's first gold medallist after he won the men's under-18 66 kg division–a great addition to the other titles he captured at the Judo TT junior championships and the Queen's Park Judo Club Tournament.
- To be continued