Liam Gor­don

T&T's Quin­cy Alexan­der and Moni­fa Sealy cap­tured the Male and Fe­male Youth of the Year awards re­spec­tive­ly when First Cit­i­zen host­ed its Sports Foun­da­tion Youth Awards for 2011, at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, Wright­son Road on Fri­day night. The two were se­lect­ed from T&T's top 10 youth per­form­ers nom­i­nat­ed in their re­spec­tive dis­ci­plines for the year. Alexan­der, who took gold in the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­ons in Mar del Pla­ta, Ar­genti­na, earned him the num­ber one spot in the Union Cy­clist In­ter­na­tion­al (UCI) world rank­ings. Sealy helped T&T to win a women's ti­tle at the Caribbean Golf Cham­pi­onships. She al­so claimed vic­to­ries in the Fu­ture Col­le­gians World Tour FCWT Na­tion­als Girls Cham­pi­onship and Amer­i­can Ju­nior Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (AJ­GA), round­ing off a suc­cess­ful year. Chair­man of the First Cit­i­zens Sport Foun­da­tion Dr Kei­th Clif­ford laud­ed the nom­i­nat­ed youths for their achieve­ments and hard work. Clif­ford in­di­cat­ed that the suc­cess­es of the nom­i­nat­ed ath­letes cre­at­ed a dilem­ma in se­lect­ing the fi­nal awardees out of the lot. "The cal­iber of youth were nom­i­nat­ed for this pres­ti­gious award pre­sent­ed a ma­jor dilem­ma for mem­bers of the top ten youths based on their achieve­ments in 2011. This la­bor is one that tax­es the knowl­edge, ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence of this il­lus­tri­ous group of sport­ing in­di­vid­u­als," said Clif­ford.

Thomp­son and Sealy topped the eight oth­er ath­letes who were nom­i­nat­ed. They in­clud­ed Jo­di Greenidge (Cy­cling), Chan­non Thomp­son (Vol­ley­ball), Kali­fa Mc­Collin (Net­ball), Shan­ntol Ince (Par­a­lympic Swim­ming), Hezekiel Romeo (Ath­let­ics), Joshua John­son (Chess), Joshua Ro­many (Swim­ming) and Aaron Wil­son (Ta­ble Ten­nis). The First Cit­i­zen Sport Foun­da­tion Awards cer­e­mo­ny was priv­i­leged to have a pri­vate au­di­ence with South African ac­tivist and re­tired An­gli­can bish­op Desmond Tu­tu who sent en­cour­ag­ing words for the sport­ing youth of T&T. He re­gard­ed each young T&T ath­lete as a "very, very spe­cial." "You are a star. There are peo­ple we call VIP... Don't you? They are peo­ple who don't stand in the lines of the air­ports. You (are) a VIP- a very spe­cial per­son. God has giv­en you sev­er­al gifts, so don't al­low peo­ple of dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances to blow out the can­dle of your life." Sil­ver and a bronze medal­ist at the 1964 Sum­mer Olympics in Tokyo and for­mer econ­o­mist and politi­cian Wen­dell Mot­t­ley, de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress to the con­tin­gent. He in­di­cat­ed the many changes which have come be­tween the world and sport dur­ing the 1960s as com­pared to the present time. "All of you have been se­lect­ed for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­tra­or­di­nary lives on the world stage. Your very pres­ence here tells me that you have been pre­s­e­lect­ed for ex­tra­or­di­nary lives. If you have not al­ready done so, to­day you must make the de­ci­sion by a-bend­ing of your will. "And through ex­tra­or­di­nary hard work and prac­tice in a com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence that will lift you out of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a le­gal life."

Al­so award­ed on the night were nom­i­nees: Bran­don Le­gal (Vol­ley­ball), Ja­son Tan­nis, Jo­van Per­sad (Taek­won­do), Marc Vic­tor, Sherise Jones (Ju­do), Joash Webb, Si­mone Gor­don (Karate), Kris­t­ian Boodoos­ing, Brid­get Singh (Kart­ing), Dell-Mari Wal­cott (Chess), Leon Cassie, Re­ba Fleary (Bad­minton) Jo­van Ali (Crick­et), Sand­hya Moll (Eques­tri­an), Kha­didra Debe­sette (Foot­ball), An­dre Collins (Golf), The­ma Williams (Gym­nas­tics), Shaquill Ed­wards (Hock­ey), Tim­o­thy Sookraj (Pow­er­lift­ing), Shan­ntol Ince (Para Swim­ming), Abi­gail Af­foo (Sail­ing), Joshua Ro­many, Kim­ber­lee John-Williams (Swim­ming), Aron Wil­son, Brit­tany Joseph (Ta­ble Ten­nis), Elan Mur­ray Mendes, Bre­ana Stampfli (Ten­nis), Aleem Mo­hammed Chelsea Mo­hammed (Triathlon).

Top 10 Spe­cial Olympians

• Ath­let­ics - La Toya Charles, Kevon Ram­per­sad

• Bas­ket­ball - Kevin Hunte

• Foot­ball - Ny­ron Noel

• Eques­tri­an - Giselle Ben­jamin, Shad­dai Si­mon

• Swim­ming - Mak­i­ba Bap­tiste, Nikoli Lal­la

• Pow­er­lift­ing - Dami­an Mar­quis

• Vol­ley­ball - Janelle Fran­cis