Williams, Kirby take top sports awards

Barbados’ top quarter-miler Sada Williams and swimmer Jack Kirby received the 2021 Female and Male Athlete of the Year awards respectively when the Barbados Olympic Association and IGT Spirit of Resilience Awards took place last night virtually.

The 24-year-old Williams took centre stage as she also received the President’s Award and won the inaugural People’s Choice Award inclusive of BDS$1000 donated by IGT Global Services Limited.

This year Williams, who trains in Jamaica, announced herself to the world with a third-place finish at the Diamond League in Zurich. Before that, she set a new Barbados national record of 50.11 seconds in the 400m at the Tokyo Olympics.

A former student of Coleridge and Parry and then later Harrison College, Williams thanked those who have supported her and said that she is looking forward to a good season in 2022.

Meanwhile, Kirby age 21 is the Male Athlete for the Year having captured bronze at the 2021 Pan Am Junior Games and became the first person from the English-speaking Caribbean to do so. It has been an awesome year for Kirby who said he was thankful to receive the award.

During her remarks, BOA president Sandra Osborne praised the athletes, coaches and sports administrators for staying the course at a time when there were numerous setbacks because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

“The cancellation of many sporting competitions and the lockdowns, curfews, and other restrictions made competing either non-existent or very challenging, and yet, we have seen sports administrators and coaches find innovative ways of continuing to function and we have seen our athletes rise above the challenges, showing incredible resilience, commitment and discipline to perform at their best.

“We acknowledge all the frontline workers who have toiled to keep us safe in the pandemic, but we consider the entire sporting community, not just those who are being honoured tonight, also to be heroes. You could have given up but you persisted. Our athletes performed at their best and deserve our support and praise. We celebrate some of them tonight but recognise all those who have stayed the course,” Osborne said.

The BOA president also took time to acknowledge Shelley Ann Hee Chung of IGT, operators of the Barbados Lottery, who sponsored the awards and spoke about the plans for 2022.

“… I am therefore pleased to announce that the Board recently approved a substantial increase in Elite Athlete funding for 2022. This means we will spend an additional one million dollars approximately on Elite Athlete funding while maintaining existing levels of support for athletes in the High Performance, Developing and Emerging categories. The funding is, of course, subject to certain conditions which will be discussed with the relevant National Federations,” Osborne explained.

She added: “We have three Games on our calendar for 2022 – the Caribbean Games in Guadeloupe, the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, and the Beach Games in Santa Marta, Colombia. Driven by our commitment to provide as safe an environment as possible for teams under our umbrella, we recently introduced a compulsory Covid-19 vaccination policy which will take effect from January 1, 2022.”

Other athletes were recognised and awarded for their outstanding contributions during the year.

Morissa Lindsay (Barbados Today), Kenmore Bynoe and Anmar Goodridge-Boyce (Nation News) were the three recipients of the Sports Journalist Recognition Award.

The International Excellence Award went to the Barbados Amateur Basketball Association eSport Team that included captain Kelan Phillips, Joshua Lowe, Rasheed Maynard, Brandon Hope, Stefan Clarke, Deroni Hurley, and Richie Walker.

Paralympic swimmer Antwahn Boyce-Vaughan won the Spirit of Resilience Individual Award while Barbados Squash Association captured the team’s aspect of that award.

Minister of Sports Dwight Sutherland commended the athletes for flying the Barbados flag with pride.

He said: “The participation of Barbadian athletes in these regional and international sporting events brings further recognition to Barbadians at home and across the diaspora and helps to keep in focus the significance of the Barbados brand.”

(morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb)