The First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion, un­der the Dis­tin­guished Pa­tron­age of His Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad & To­ba­go, Pro­fes­sor George Maxwell Richards will host its An­nu­al Sports Awards on Feb­ru­ary 8, at the Queen's Hall, Port of Spain. Fit­ting­ly the Sports­man and Sports­woman of the Year Awards cel­e­brates its 50 years of Cham­pi­ons as it was start­ed in 1963 with the cel­e­bra­tion of the Sports Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year by the For­mer WIT­CO Sports Foun­da­tion. The first win­ner was Roger Gib­bon. Both the WIT­CO Sports Foun­da­tion and the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion have es­tab­lished a well earned rep­u­ta­tion for ex­cel­lence. The Foun­da­tion's se­lec­tion com­mit­tee, head­ed by Chair­man Dr Kei­th Clif­ford and aid­ed by sport­ing as­so­ci­a­tions (through the nom­i­na­tions of ath­letes), has worked through an ex­haus­tive and thor­ough process in de­cid­ing on the var­i­ous nom­i­na­tions. The fol­low­ing awards will once again be among the high­lights of the award cer­e­mo­ny.

• The Jef­frey Stollmey­er Award for the best sport­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion.

• The Lystra Lewis Award for the Team of the Year.

• The Sports­man and Sports­woman of the Year.

To­day the Guardian look at two of T&T's most recog­nis­able box­ing tal­ents, An­drew Fer­min and Ria Ram­nar­ine who are were among the top ath­letes nom­i­nat­ed in the First Cit­i­zens Sports Awards for 2012. Al­so, stand-out archer George Vire, un­sur­pris­ing­ly, was al­so list­ed as the top ath­lete in his dis­ci­pline.

AM­A­TEUR BOX­ING

(Trinidad & To­ba­go Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion)

• An­drew Fer­min

An­drew Fer­min, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in last year's Pan Amer­i­can Game's qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment yield­ed suc­cess as he ul­ti­mate­ly reached the fi­nal four in Pana­ma in Ju­ly, which saw him earn a spot in the said games in Guadala­jara, Mex­i­co. De­spite giv­ing a strong fight, he found him­self down 12-4 on points against Venezuela's Juan Car­los Ro­driguez, and re­tired in the sec­ond of the con­test.

Fer­min, a mem­ber of the T&T Reg­i­ment, al­so took part in the CISM Mil­i­tary World Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and fought his way to the quar­ter-fi­nals be­fore go­ing down to Al­i­bi Nur­ma­tov of Kaza­khstan.

With adren­a­line pump­ing, and the 2012 Lon­don Olympic Games in the hori­zon, Fer­min will be prepar­ing and keep­ing mo­men­tum with top form on his agen­da.

• Ria Ram­nar­ine

Ria Ram­nar­ine had to en­dure long pe­ri­ods of in­ac­tiv­i­ty for the most part of 2011.

Ram­nar­ine, how­ev­er, was favoured in a split de­ci­sion call when she took to the Jean Pierre Com­plex, to face Ol­ga Julio of Colom­bia back in Feb­ru­ary, see­ing her lift the va­cant Women's In­ter­na­tion­al Box­ing Fed­er­a­tion (WIBF) min­i­mum weight ti­tle, the va­cant Women's In­ter­na­tion­al Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (WI­BA) light fly­weight cham­pi­onship, the va­cant Glob­al Box­ing Union fe­male min­i­mum weight belt and the Caribbean Box­ing Fed­er­a­tion (CABOFE) mi­ni-fly­weight ti­tle.

Ram­nar­ine's on­ly oth­er fight of 2011 oc­curred on Ju­ly 29 at the same venue ver­sus the Russ­ian, Anas­ta­sia Tok­taulo­va.

This time, Ram­nar­ine just could not gen­er­ate the nec­es­sary mo­men­tum and lost her WI­BA light fly­weight ti­tle via a unan­i­mous de­ci­sion win for Tok­taulo­va, though Ram­nar­ine still reigns proud­ly as the WIBF min­i­mum weight world cham­pi­on.

ARCHERY

(Trinidad & To­ba­go Tar­get Archery Fed­er­a­tion)

George Vire

George Vire is un­doubtably T&T most in-form archer. Vire con­tin­u­ous­ly sur­pass­es him­self with awards and ac­co­lades mount­ing on a con­stant ba­sis.

T&T's class-act archer man­aged to out­do him­self at the Cos­ta Ri­ca Cup in San Jose, last Au­gust, to cre­ate his­to­ry as the first par­tic­i­pant from this coun­try to claim a world-rank­ing tour­na­ment ti­tle.

Af­ter see­ing off the USA's Corey Shive with a 144-142 points vic­to­ry, Vire lat­er stepped up to the mark and best­ed fel­low Trinida­di­an, Sookoo, 141-132 in the com­pound bow fi­nals.

Vire, who al­so had the ho­n­our of in­spir­ing this na­tion, to a team bronze medal in the com­pound bow di­vi­sion at the Co­pa Meringue world-rank­ing com­pe­ti­tion in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, emerged the over­all male com­pound bow cham­pi­on at the T&T na­tion­als as he racked up a points to­tal of 136 to fin­ish ahead of ri­vals, Has­math Ali (134), Sookoo (134) and Robert Gib­son (131).