Track and field ath­lete Jereem “The Dream” Richards and cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell were named the 2022 First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion ‘Sports­man of the Year’ and ‘Sports­woman of the Year’ award re­cip­i­ents at the 60th an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny themed Pass­ing the Ba­ton which was held at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, on Sun­day.

The win by the duo fol­lowed up their sim­i­lar tri­umphs at the 2022 T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&TOC) awards func­tion held last De­cem­ber. It was al­so the sec­ond First Cit­i­zens award for the 28-year-old Richards to add to his win in 2018, and the third for Camp­bell, who al­so copped the top award in 2019, and 2020.

Dur­ing his 2022 sea­son, Richards won T&T’s first-ever gold medal at the World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships when he pow­ered to vic­to­ry in the men’s 400m fi­nal in 45.00 sec­onds at the Stark Are­na in Be­o­rad, Bel­grade Ser­bia, ahead of USA’s Trevor Bassitt (45.05), with Swe­den’s Carl Bengstrom (45.33) in third place in March.

In win­ning the 400m ti­tle in 45.00 sec­onds, Richards broke the na­tion­al in­door record of 45.03 sec­onds, which was held by the late De­on Lendore, who died trag­i­cal­ly in a car ac­ci­dent in Jan­u­ary last year.

He then clocked a per­son­al best 19.83 sec­onds in win­ning the Na­tion­al 200m ti­tle in June be­fore he low­ered that mark and set a new meet record on his way to de­fend­ing his men’s 200m ti­tle at the 2022 Birm­ing­ham Com­mon­wealth Games in Eng­land, in Ju­ly.

A Point Fortin na­tive, Richards, won the event in 19.80, eras­ing the pre­vi­ous Com­mon­wealth Games record of 19.97, held by Frankie Fred­er­icks of Namib­ia since 1994 while at the World Track and Field Cham­pi­onship in Port­land, Ore­gon, he was sixth in the fi­nal in 20.08.

Richards al­so com­bined with Dwight St Hillaire, Asa Gue­vara, and Machel Ce­de­nio to cap­ture the 4x400m men’s re­lay gold medal in Birm­ing­ham.

The 25-year-old Camp­bell of Hard­bar­gain, Vil­lage, Williamsville, al­so had a pro­duc­tive 2022, win­ning the Points Race ti­tle, and earn­ing sil­ver in the In­di­vid­ual Pur­suit, and the bronze in the Elim­i­na­tion Race at the Elite Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Li­ma, Pe­ru.

Camp­bell, the daugh­ter of for­mer top na­tion­al net­baller Eu­phemia Hug­gins al­so placed sixth at the Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land-held Com­mon­wealth Games in the Road Race event in a bunch fin­ish, and sev­enth in the Time Tri­al.

At home, she won dou­ble gold at the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, in the Road Race and Time Tri­al events, as well as gold in the Time Tri­al at the Elite Caribbean Road Cham­pi­onships in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic be­fore suf­fer­ing a fall in the women’s Road Race.

And as a mem­ber of Team­Bi­ke­Ex­change-Jay­co Camp­bell was a 10th-placed fin­ish­er in the 10th and fi­nal stage of the 2022 Giro d’Italia Donne, the most pres­ti­gious stage race in women’s road cy­cling for 83rd spot over­all.

Among the ju­niors, na­tion­al swim­mer, Nikoli Black­man com­plet­ed an­oth­er hat-trick of wins by tak­ing home the “Ju­nior Sports­man” award, a feat he al­so achieved at the T&TOC awards, while cy­clist Phobe Sandy was vot­ed as the “Ju­nior Sports­woman”, an award she al­so col­lect­ed last De­cem­ber as well.

Elab­o­rat­ing on the theme, the Chair­man of the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion, Dr Ter­ry Ali said, “The past has laid the foun­da­tion stones for the fu­ture of sport­ing achieve­ments and has set the stage for many of our ath­letes to mount the podi­um. We have moved for­ward with sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions from the Min­istry of Sport, the T&TOC, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), the var­i­ous sport­ing as­so­ci­a­tions, clubs, and the many spon­sors who have tak­en an in­ter­est in the de­vel­op­ment of the sport. What re­mains now is suc­ces­sion plan­ning, to en­sure con­tin­u­ous growth and de­vel­op­ment”

He added, “The foun­da­tion will there­fore cel­e­brate the col­lec­tive con­tri­bu­tion of its var­i­ous part­ners, in­clud­ing the fore­sight of the awards’ founders, the West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, from which First Cit­i­zens over­took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the awards in 2004.

“The First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion looks for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to rec­og­nize and pro­mote a cul­ture of ex­cel­lence in sports at all lev­els of so­ci­ety, by ad­vo­cat­ing for the needs of ath­letes, coach­es, and sports ad­min­is­tra­tors, pro­vid­ing train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in ar­eas such as sports ad­min­is­tra­tion ef­fi­cien­cy, sports psy­chol­o­gy, me­dia re­la­tions, and safe­guard­ing aware­ness, of­fer­ing sup­port for sport­ing events and sport­ing clubs and mak­ing fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of our na­tion­al ath­letes,” stat­ed Dr Ali.

The First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion al­so in­duct­ed nine for­mer na­tion­al ath­letes/ad­min­is­tra­tors and teams in­to the Hall of Fame in­clu­sive of the 1987 na­tion­al net­ball team which was joint-sec­ond placed fin­ish­ers at the 1987 Net­ball World Cup with Aus­tralia, An­drew Churchill Ale­ong (crick­et), Li­onel D’Arceuil (ta­ble ten­nis), Win­ston Mul­li­gan (ta­ble ten­nis), Stacey-Ann Siu Butt (hock­ey), Mush­taque Mo­hammed (vol­ley­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor), Ash­ley Ian Har­ris (hock­ey coach), Mar­cus Min­shall (rug­by and posthu­mous­ly, Ian Nivet (cy­cling), and Phillip Ian Dore (ath­let­ics train­er/phys­io­ther­a­py).