Guardian Me­dia Sports Jour­nal­ist Rachael Thomp­son-King, the News­gath­erng Ed­i­tor - Sports, was recog­nised for her con­tri­bu­tion to the sports of bas­ket­ball and net­ball, and jour­nal­ism with the Fu­ture Is Fe­male as she shared the event’s spot­light along­side track and field ath­lete Jereem “The Dream” Richards and cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell, who were named as the 2022 T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&TOC) Sports­man of the Year and Sports­woman of the Year, when the head sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion held its 28th an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny which took place vir­tu­al­ly on Thurs­day.

Thomp­son-King is a 20-year vet­er­an jour­nal­ist who is a for­mer na­tion­al bas­ket­ball play­er at the ju­nior and se­nior lev­els. The Point Fortin na­tive, who is an ath­let­ic schol­ar­ship win­ner, cap­tained her club team Hori­zon to three na­tion­al ti­tles in the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion Na­tion­al of T&T (NBFTT) Cham­pi­onships be­tween 2007 and 2011 and she al­so led her club to five ti­tles in the North Zone Bas­ket­ball Com­mis­sion be­tween 2004 to 2011. Thomp­son-King is the cur­rent pres­i­dent of her club, which al­so cam­paigns in the Port-of-Spain Net­ball League.

Mean­while, the win for the 28-year-old Point Fortin-born Richards was his third in five years af­ter pre­vi­ous tri­umphs in 2017, and 2018 while Camp­bell se­cured her sec­ond top TTOC award af­ter her first tri­umph in 2020.

Richards dou­bled up on his award haul on the night as he was al­so pre­sent­ed with the Sports Per­son­al­i­ty of The Year award. The T&T sprint­er was in some of his best form this year as he starred on the track at the Com­mon­wealth Games win­ning gold in the men’s 200-me­ter event. He even broke his per­son­al best and the meet record on his way to de­fend­ing his men’s 200m ti­tle.

Richard con­tin­ues to show his hu­mil­i­ty as he was swift to praise his com­pe­ti­tion for these awards.

He said, “It’s an ho­n­our to re­ceive the sport­ing per­son­al­i­ty award, es­pe­cial­ly be­ing con­sid­ered among such pres­ti­gious ath­letes as Dy­lan Carter and Nicholas Paul.”

His re­quest for T&T’s na­tion­al an­them to be that of the steel­pan ren­di­tion at The Com­mon­wealth Games, a re­quest which was grant­ed, will not long be for­got­ten by lo­cal track and field fans.

Camp­bell, who made her Olympic de­but in 2021 had a stel­lar sea­son this year as well. She won gold at the 2022 Elite Caribbean Road Cham­pi­onships in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in Oc­to­ber and was first in the points race at the Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Pe­ru.

At the Com­mon­wealth Games, Camp­bell fin­ished sixth in the women’s road race in a field of over 50 cy­clists. In the time tri­al, she end­ed sev­enth in a field which in­clud­ed over 30 ath­letes.

The Peo­ple’s Choice Awards was pre­sent­ed to cy­clist Nicholas Paul who had T&T’s largest medal haul at the Com­mon­wealth games where he copped three medals in Lon­don.

He won gold in the keirin, got sil­ver in the sprint and took bronze in the 1K time tri­al. Paul was the 2021 TTOC sports­man of the year.

The Ju­nior Sports­man Award went to Nikoli Black­man af­ter his first-place fin­ish­es at both The Caribbean and Pan Amer­i­can games, while The Ju­nior Sports­woman award was pre­sent­ed to Dou­ble Na­tion­al Ju­nior Cham­pi­on Phobe Sandy (cy­cling) who showed great promise at the Ju­nior World Cham­pi­onships.

The Alexan­der B. Chap­man award was giv­en to the past Pres­i­dent of T&T’s Hock­ey Board Mau­reen Craig Rosseau for her out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to Olymp­ism in T&T.