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Thursday, May 8, 2025

Like mother, like daughter — Sportswomen of the year

by

Rachael Thompson-King
1849 days ago
20200415
Former national netballer and field athlete Euphemia Huggins, the 1989 Sportswomen of the Year and daughter  Teniel Campbell, the 2019 FCB Sportswoman of the Year.

Former national netballer and field athlete Euphemia Huggins, the 1989 Sportswomen of the Year and daughter Teniel Campbell, the 2019 FCB Sportswoman of the Year.

Teneil Camp­bell's suc­cess has been as fast-paced as her cy­cling life.

On Sun­day though, she slowed down just enough to cel­e­brate be­ing named the First Cit­i­zens' Sports Foun­da­tion's "Sports­woman of the Year". But just as quick­ly raced back to the time to when her moth­er Eu­phemia Hug­gins, a for­mer na­tion­al net­baller, bas­ket­baller and field ath­lete, copped the pres­ti­gious award.

An achieve­ment which got Hug­gins emo­tion­al on learn­ing that her daugh­ter was recog­nised with the ho­n­our for her hard work, rep­re­sent­ing T&T, as she had done sev­er­al years ago.

"It was a hap­py mo­ment, re­al­ly hap­py mo­ment," said a soft-spo­ken Hug­gins yes­ter­day. "It brought tears to my eyes. Hap­py for her."

In 1989 at the then WIT­CO (West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny) Sports Awards, Hug­gins, who is na­tive of Hard­bar­gin in Williamsville, Princes Town, was nom­i­nat­ed in two sport­ing dis­ci­plines, net­ball and track and field and even­tu­al­ly emerged with the na­tion­al award.

Hug­gins was a mem­ber of ath­let­ic club Sim­plex and played net­ball for Trot­ters, Lak­ers and Po­lice and was very suc­cess­ful ei­ther in de­fence or goal-shoot po­si­tions.

Camp­bell' emo­tions over­flowed as well say­ing in a Face­book post: "It is in­deed a thrilling feel­ing for my name to be on the same tro­phy as my moth­er 30 years lat­er!

"An ec­sta­t­ic feel­ing yet al­so heart wrench­ing. This year, the award cer­e­mo­ny was dif­fer­ent. None of our ath­letes was able to dress with el­e­gance and class to at­tend the func­tion nor col­lect their re­spec­tive award.

"In­stead a vir­tu­al show was cre­at­ed to ho­n­our the achieve­ments of T&T’s top ath­letes with­in their sport­ing dis­ci­pline due to the world’s cur­rent pan­dem­ic which we are all fac­ing. We must all re­main healthy, men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly strong in these un­prece­dent­ed times. This too shall pass and then we can con­tin­ue to tack­le and chase our goals.

"To­geth­er We As­pire, To­geth­er We Achieve."

Fit­ting in­spi­ra­tional words from the pre­mier in­ter­na­tion­al cy­clist, who had a sen­sa­tion­al sea­son win­ning gold in the women's Un­der-23 Time Tri­al at the Pan Amer­i­can Road and Track Cham­pi­onships in Pachu­ca de So­to, Mex­i­co in May and dou­ble sil­ver (road race and time tri­al) at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Li­ma, Pe­ru in Au­gust.

Per­for­mances which saw Camp­bell, who has al­ready qual­i­fied for the 2020 Olympic Games, now post­poned to 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, tak­ing the 2019 T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) "Sports­woman of the Year" award.

"Af­ter win­ning the TTOC award she had said 'I re­al­ly would like to win the First Cit­i­zens' award, to reach to where you have reached," said Hug­gins, who added that she chat­ted a 'lit­tle bit' with her very busy daugh­ter.

The Italy-based UCI Women's Con­ti­nen­tal Team Val­car–Trav­el & Ser­vice cy­clist con­tin­ued in her post, di­rect­ed at her sup­port­ers, say­ing: "Thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port and con­cerns. I am still healthy, con­trol­ling what I can and act­ing ac­cord­ing­ly.

"Some­times train­ing ses­sions can be men­tal­ly chal­leng­ing as all ac­tiv­i­ties are be­ing done in­doors. How­ev­er, the grind has not stopped, I just added a bit of “ba­con” for the time be­ing."


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