Jereem ‘The Dream’ Richards and Leah Bertrand were crowned the Se­nior Male and Fe­male Ath­letes of the Year when the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NAAATT) held its an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Radis­son Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day evening.

Their choic­es did not come as a sur­prise af­ter both en­joyed a stand­out sea­son for 2024. Richards, re­cent­ly vot­ed the coun­try’s top sports­man by the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) on De­cem­ber 29, was al­so named the top men’s track ath­lete, while Bertrand took the fe­male’s equiv­a­lent.

Richards was al­so sin­gled out for out­stand­ing per­for­mances, along­side the quin­tet of Ha­keem Chi­napoo, Che Wick­ham, Kadeem Chi­napoo, Mikhail By­er, and Dy­lan Woodruff, who held off Ja­maica for the 4x100 me­tres re­lay gold medal at the Carif­ta Games. 

Chi­napoo (Kadeem) lat­er walked away with the Pres­i­dent’s Award.

Mean­while, Olympic gold medal­list and javelin throw­er Keshorn Wal­cott grabbed the prize for the Men’s Field Ath­lete of the Year, with Por­tious War­ren eas­i­ly snap­ping up the award for the Fe­male Field Ath­lete of the Year.

The cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by some of the coun­try’s icons, in­clud­ing Hase­ly Craw­ford, the coun­try’s 100 me­tres gold medal­list, as well as Lar­ry Ro­many, chair­man of Sports TT; Joseph Ish­mael Khan, chair­man of the NGC; and fea­ture speak­er Che Richards, among many oth­ers.

Richards de­liv­ered a an in­spi­ra­tional per­for­mance in the fi­nal of the 400 me­tres at the Olympic Games in Paris, France. Run­ning deep in lane nine, lead­ing for most of the race be­fore fad­ing in­to fourth po­si­tion mere me­ters from the fin­ish line. 

He lat­er sin­cere­ly apol­o­gis­es to the Twin Is­land Re­pub­lic for his in­abil­i­ty to re­turn home with a medal. His apol­o­gy was well re­ceived, but it was not need­ed, fol­low­ing a per­for­mance that led to a new na­tion­al record in the event in 43.78 sec­onds. 

Bertrand, on the oth­er hand, cruised in­to the semi­fi­nals of 100 me­tres dur­ing her de­but at the Olympics. For 2024 she was al­so crowned na­tion­al cham­pi­on in the 100 me­tres event and claimed the Out­door Big Ten Ti­tles that in­clud­ed the 100 me­tres and the 4x100 me­tres re­lay. 

David Roberts, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, said the gath­er­ing was not on­ly to cel­e­brate the in­cred­i­ble achieve­ments of the ath­letes but al­so to recog­nise their out­stand­ing per­for­mances and to ho­n­our their ded­i­ca­tion, per­se­ver­ance, and the spir­it of sports­man­ship that they em­body. 

“Tonight we not just the vic­to­ries but the jour­ney. We recog­nise the mo­ments of tri­umph and the lessons learnt in de­feat. We cel­e­brate the ca­ma­raderie, the sports­man­ship, and the un­break­able bonds forged through com­pe­ti­tion,” Roberts said. 

Mean­while, Ta­fari Wal­dron, a win­ner of the UWI Half Marathon for the first time last year, was vot­ed the Ju­nior Male of the Year, while Janae De Gannes copped the Ju­nior Fe­male of the Year.