Fresh off of their awards at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) cer­e­mo­ny on Sun­day, sprint­ers Jereem Richards and Leah Bertrand are the lead nom­i­nees for the Sports­man and Woman Award for the First Cit­i­zens Sports Awards. Crick­eter Nicholas Pooran is al­so in the lead to win the il­lus­tri­ous award af­ter his dom­i­nant year in 2024. 

The stage is set for the awards on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 11, 2025, at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, Port-of-Spain. Un­der the theme “The Pow­er of Per­se­ver­ance,” this an­nu­al event will cel­e­brate ath­let­ic ex­cel­lence, re­silience, and de­ter­mi­na­tion, show­cas­ing the re­gion’s finest sports tal­ent. 

Tra­di­tion­al­ly held in March, this year’s event has been moved to Jan­u­ary and will be broad­cast live on Sports­Max. The awards will high­light the re­mark­able jour­neys of ath­letes who have over­come chal­lenges and shat­tered records. 

With 84 nom­i­nees from more than 25 sport­ing dis­ci­plines, the pro­gram promis­es to be a show­case of tal­ent and per­se­ver­ance. Ath­letes will com­pete for the cov­et­ed ti­tles of First Cit­i­zens Sports­man and Sports­woman of the year 2024.

Oth­er no­table ath­letes that are nom­i­nat­ed for the awards are swim­mers Dy­lan Carter and Zuri Fer­gu­son, cy­clists Nicholas Paul and Makaira Wal­lace, and Par­a­lympic dis­cus throw­er Akeem Stew­art. 

Carter holds nu­mer­ous na­tion­al records for Trinidad and To­ba­go in events such as the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, and 50m but­ter­fly. He won gold in the men’s 50m freestyle and bronze in the men’s 100m freestyle at the World Aquat­ics Swim­ming World Cup in 2024. 

Al­so fresh off the Ju­nior Sports­woman of the Year award from the TTOC cer­e­mo­ny, Fer­gu­son was recog­nised for be­ing the youngest T&T ath­lete at the games, fin­ish­ing third in her 100m Back­stroke heat. She won sev­en gold medals dur­ing her 2024 cam­paign and is now the hold­er of all na­tion­al back­stroke records, set­ting new long and short course marks be­tween April and De­cem­ber 2024. 

Paul would be look­ing for his fourth First Cit­i­zens Sports­man of the Year award af­ter win­ning the award last year. The 26-year-old com­pet­ed in the UCI Na­tions Cups, Pan Am Champs, the Olympic Games, and the five-stage Cham­pi­ons League in 2024. One of his big high­lights was re­tain­ing his Pan Am Champs sprint and Keirin ti­tles in April. 

Akeem Stew­art is al­so on the list af­ter win­ning sil­ver at the Par­a­lympic Games in the men’s F64 dis­cus. This achieve­ment would grant him the Sports Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year award from TTOC.

Wal­lace was the toast of the past year and was ho­n­oured with the Peo­ple’s Choice Award. Wal­lace made a strong case for the Sports­woman of the Year ho­n­ours with her his­toric per­for­mances at the UCI Ju­nior Track World Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Lu­oyang, Chi­na.

A mem­ber of the Just Liv­ing Dai­ly Cy­cling Club, Wal­lace was a top per­former in June with two sil­ver medals at the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships among her in­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mances for last year.

At his sec­ond Olympics, Richards clocked 43.78 sec­onds in the men’s 400m fi­nal, miss­ing out on bronze by four hun­dredths of a sec­ond, set­ting a new na­tion­al record. The 30-year-old al­so won 200 me­ters gold in Switzer­land, Bermu­da, and Ja­maica.

Bertrand’s first time be­ing named sports­woman of the year is the lat­est tri­umph in a ban­ner year. T&T’s reign­ing 100m sprint cham­pi­on ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nals of her pet event at the Paris Olympics.

In the NCAA’s Di­vi­sion One, Bertrand made the All-Amer­i­can First Team in the NCAA and the 2024 out­door Big Ten Cham­pi­on for the 100 and 4x100.

Pooran cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the West In­dies crick­et team in lim­it­ed-overs for­mats and oc­ca­sion­al­ly serves as the team’s cap­tain.

In 2024, Pooran made the most six­es in a cal­en­dar year with 170 in 74 in­nings, break­ing Chris Gayle’s 2015 record of 135 six­es. He broke the record for the most T20 runs in a cal­en­dar year, hit­ting 2,059 in 66 match­es. He was the most capped play­er for the West In­dies in T20 and al­so made ES­PN Cricin­fo’s T20 team of the year.

The cer­e­mo­ny will al­so fea­ture cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mances, mo­ti­va­tion­al speech­es, and the in­duc­tion of new leg­ends in­to the First Cit­i­zens Sports Hall of Fame.