World cham­pi­onships cam­paign­er De­on Lendore and Carif­ta sil­ver medal­lists Jonathan Far­in­ha and Darvin Sandy walked away with the ma­jor ho­n­ours at the Abi­lene Wild­cats Ath­let­ic Club Ath­letes's Awards and Recog­ni­tion Cer­e­mo­ny at the Ari­ma Ten­nis Club in Ari­ma on Sat­ur­day. The three were named the club's Most Out­stand­ing Ath­letes for 2011.Nine­teen-year-old Lendore was a mem­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go's men's 4x400m team which com­pet­ed at the IAAF World Cham­pi­onships in Daegu, South Ko­rea in Au­gust/Sep­tem­ber.Lendore ran the third leg in the heats (along with Zwede He­witt, Jar­rin Solomon and Ren­ny Quow) in which T&T fin­ished sixth in 3:02:47.

The Queen's Roy­al Stu­dent was part of this coun­try's CAC Cham­pi­onships' sil­ver medal quar­tet which clocked a World Cham­pi­onships qual­i­fy­ing time of 3:02:47. Lendore was al­so run­ner up in the men's 400m at the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships in Ju­ly in Mi­ra­mar, Flori­da in a per­son­al best of 46.50 and an­chored the lo­cal mile re­lay squad so sil­ver (3:13:27).At the Carif­ta Games in Ja­maica in April, Lendore again helped T&T to sil­ver, in the boys un­der 20 4x400m re­lay, along with club­mates Sandy and Hen­drix Fon­cette. In the 400m fi­nals he did not fin­ish.The 2010 World Ju­nior semi­fi­nal­ist al­so col­lect­ed the Top Un­der 20 male award and was among sev­en who were ho­n­oured for rep­re­sent­ing the club and coun­try at re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al meets. Lendore re­cent­ly earned an ath­let­ic schol­ar­ship to Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty. He is set to be­gin his stud­ies in Jan­u­ary 2012.

Far­in­ha made his mark at the Carif­ta Cham­pi­onships where he helped T&T's Boys Un­der 17 4x100 (41:13) and 4x400 (3:15:35) teams to sil­ver medals. He missed out on a medal in the 200m fi­nals fin­ish­ing fourth (22.01) and was sev­enth in the 100m fi­nals (11.06). The Queen's Roy­al Col­lege sprint­er was al­so vot­ed the club's top Un­der 17 male ath­lete.Sandy an­chored T& T to the Carif­ta Boys Un­der 20 4x400m re­lay. Bre­an­na Gomes was named the top Un­der 20 fe­male while Kadisha Fran­cois cap­tured the girls Un­der 17 ho­n­ours.Club of­fi­cial Al­fred Gibbs com­mend­ed Lendore and Far­in­ha on their per­for­mances. He al­so ac­knowl­edged the ef­forts of sev­er­al first timers. "Among the new com­ers wor­thy of men­tion are Asa Gue­vara (Boys Un­der 17), mid­dle dis­tance run­ners Chaux­mus Forde mid­dle dis­tance run­ner (Boys Un­der 20) and Je­lani Brath­waite (Boys Un­der 15) and Mari­cia Pe­ters (Girls Un­der 13)."

Gibbs re­port­ed that eight of the clubs ath­letes rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try at the Carif­ta Games. He praised the coach­ing staff for the com­mit­ment shown."These peo­ple con­tin­ue to set the ex­am­ple of at­ten­dance and com­mit­ment through­out the en­tire 2011 sea­son. They showed up whether sun or ran as if their lives and rou­tines de­pend­ed on a need to guide the group of youths in their pur­suit of ath­let­ic ex­pe­ri­ence. A very spe­cial men­tion has to made of head coach Char­lie Joseph, as­sis­tants Bri­an Wilt­shire and Dave Sandy and our ex­er­cise, strength train­ing coach Mar­lon Rocky O'Brien. I must al­so thank the many par­ents and sup­port­ers who as­sist­ed the coach­ing staff dur­ing this pe­ri­od."

HO­N­OUR ROLL

Un­der 11: Aliyah Mitchell, Chane Gomes

Un­der 13: Mari­cia Pe­ters, Justen O'Brien

Un­der 15: Je­lani Brath­waite

Un­der 17: Kadisha Fran­cois, Jonathan Far­in­ha

Un­der 20: Bre­an­na Gomes, De­on Lendore

In­ter­na­tion­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tion

Kadisha Fran­cois, Bre­an­na Gomes, Asa Gue­vara, Hen­drix Fon­cette, Darvin Sandy, Jonathan Far­in­ha, De­on Lendore

Most Out­stand­ing

De­on Lendore, Jonathan Far­in­ha,

Darvin Sandy.