Na­tion­al sprint­ers Jereem "The Dream" Richards and Michelle-Lee Ahye cap­tured the top awards for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year when the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion host­ed its 56th an­nu­al Sports Awards cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day night at the Queen’s Hall, Port-of-Spain to ho­n­our last sea­son's top se­nior and ju­nior na­tion­al ath­letes for their ex­ploits lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

This was the fourth con­sec­u­tive year that ath­let­ics claimed the top ho­n­ours in the se­nior cat­e­go­ry and al­so in the youth cat­e­go­ry where sprint­er Shani­qua Bas­combe was ad­judged the youth "Sports­woman of the Year". Swim­mer Kael Yorke broke up the sweep by cop­ping the youth "Sports­man of the Year".

Richards of Point Fortin won the gold medal at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Gold Coast, Aus­tralia in the men’s 200 me­tres event last year and was all smiles when col­lect­ing the glit­ter­ing tro­phy from Dr Ter­ry Ali, who re­placed Dr Kei­th Clif­ford as the chair­man of the Sports Foun­da­tion.

"I am hum­bled by this award," said Richards. "When I be­gan to com­pete in track I would have nev­er be­lieved that I would have one day won this ac­co­lade. How­ev­er, this is tes­ti­mo­ny that hard work, dili­gence, dis­ci­pline, fo­cus and my be­lief in God, any­thing is pos­si­ble. I thank my coach, my fam­i­ly and my friends who have jour­neyed with me and I hope to bring more glo­ry to T&T next year."

The dy­nam­ic Ahye of Re­birth Club was crowned three years in a row, al­so win­ning the award in 2016, 2017 and got the hat-trick on Sat­ur­day.

She too ex­celled at the Com­mon­wealth Games, be­com­ing the first T&T woman to win a Com­mon­wealth gold medal in the 100m sprint event. Ahye eased through the qual­i­fy­ing rounds book­ing a berth in the women’s 100m fi­nal be­fore mak­ing his­to­ry.

Ahye's moth­er Raquel was again present to col­lect the award on be­half of her daugh­ter from Min­is­ter of Sports Sham­fa Cud­joe.

"Michelle is very proud of her coun­try and this is an­oth­er ac­com­plish­ment for her. She has worked tremen­dous­ly hard for her suc­cess and will be look­ing for­ward to bring­ing home a medal for this coun­try in 2020 at the Olympics Games," said Rac­quel.

Both Ahye and Richards cap­tured the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&TOC) and Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tors of T&T (NAAATT) 2018 awards. Cougars' Bas­combe was al­so vot­ed as the NAAATT's ju­nior Sports­woman of the Year.

Bas­combe was over­whelmed by her suc­cess say­ing, "I am so ex­cit­ed and hap­py to win this cov­et­ed award. My fo­cus and de­ter­mi­na­tion along with my coach Kelvin Nan­coo have brought me to where I am to­day. I know things will on­ly get tougher but my aim to rise to the chal­lenge and make my coun­try proud, with the Carif­ta Games as my first tar­get."

Sports Min­is­ter Cud­joe in her ad­dress laud­ed First Cit­i­zens for its sup­port and as­sis­tance to this na­tion over the years and praised the 98 ath­letes 55 se­nior (28 men and 27 women) and 43 ju­nior (17 girls and 26 boys), who were up for the re­spec­tive ac­co­lades.

She said, "For over 56 years the Sports Foun­da­tion has been the stan­dard-bear­er for cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the area of sports de­vel­op­ment in T&T. For as long as I could re­mem­ber, First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion has been a bea­con of hope in var­i­ous ini­tia­tives that pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of our peo­ple, and more specif­i­cal­ly our youth.

"First Cit­i­zens, you have made your mark in­deed, and your rep­u­ta­tion re­mains, undis­put­ed, sec­ond to none. The en­tire sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, from ath­letes to coach­es from ad­min­is­tra­tors to spec­ta­tors, we have all been touched in some way or the oth­er by your phil­an­thropic en­deav­ours. And for that, we thank you.

"We need to take a page from the book of each ath­lete be­cause they im­part life lessons that on­ly sport can teach. Where hu­mil­i­ty brings ho­n­our, dis­ci­pline brings dig­ni­ty, favour is trumped by fair-play each and every day, your worth is de­ter­mined by your work. Per­se­ver­ance brings pow­er and re­silience earns you re­spect

"Our ath­letes epit­o­mise all these fine qual­i­ties, and they de­serve every bit of recog­ni­tion and ho­n­our they re­ceive. The gov­ern­ment of T&T joins First Cit­i­zens in salut­ing you, our sports­men and women.

"To First Cit­i­zens and the en­tire sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, we thank you for your ser­vice, your sac­ri­fice and for the lessons that you have taught us through sport."

Yorke was not at the cer­e­mo­ny so his sis­ter Keona re­ceived the award on his be­half from Karen Dar­basie, Group CEO of First Cit­i­zens

In oth­er awards hand­ed out, the NAAATT was ad­judged the win­ner of the Jef­frey Stollmey­er Award, large cat­e­go­ry, which is giv­en to a na­tion­al gov­ern­ing sports body that has out­stand­ing­ly show­cased ini­tia­tives, and made sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments in its ad­min­is­tra­tion and to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of its ath­letes. NAAATT pres­i­dent Ephraim Ser­rette was pre­sent­ed the award, which his body won for the fourth time, by Stollmey­er's grand­daugh­ter So­phie White, who mo­ments ear­li­er hand­ed out the tro­phy for the small­er cat­e­go­ry to the T&T Chess As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA), which was col­lect­ed by TTCA pres­i­dent Son­ja John­son.

The Lystra Lewis award is for any in­di­vid­ual, team or group whose per­for­mance has im­pact­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly on the na­tion­al sports land­scape. The ad­judged win­ner was the 4x400m re­lay team. Richards and De­on Lendore col­lect­ed the prize on be­half of the team from three mem­bers of the T&T 1979 World net­ball cham­pi­on team in­clud­ing Jen­nifer Frank, Sher­ril Pe­ters, Peg­gy Cas­tana­da- Phillip and Petal Hink­son, ne­ice of Lystra Lewis.

For­mer cham­pi­on cy­clist Roger Gib­bon pre­sent­ed the tro­phies to the top 10 se­nior and ju­nior ath­letes be­fore the even­tu­al win­ners were an­nounced.

2018 HO­N­OUR ROLL

Sports­man of The Year: Ja­reem Richards - Ath­let­ics

Sports­woman of The Year: Michelle-Lee Ahye

Youth Sport­woman of the Year: Shani­qua Bas­combe - Ath­let­ics

Youth Sports­man of The Year: Kael Yorke - Swim­ming

Top 10 Se­nior Ath­letes of the Year

1. Aisha Chow - Row­ing

2. Dy­lan Carter - Swim­ming

3. Jereem Richards - Ath­let­ics

4. Michael Alexan­der - Box­ing

5. Michelle-Lee Ahye - Ath­let­ics

6. Muham­mad Ali - Au­to­mo­bile Rac­ing

7. Nicholas Paul - Cy­cling

8. Saman­tha Wal­lace - Net­ball

9. Shan­non Gabriel - Crick­et

10. Te­niel Camp­bell - Cy­cling

Jef­frey Stollmey­er Award for the top or­gan­i­sa­tions

Small Cat­e­go­ry Win­ner - T&T Chess As­so­ci­a­tion

Large Cat­e­go­ry Win­ner - Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T

Lystra Lewis award for top in­di­vid­ual, team or group: Men's 4x400m re­lay team (Jereem Richards, De­on Lendore, Asa Gue­vara, Lalonde Gor­don).