WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

Cy­clist Nicholas Paul, sprint­er Jereem Richards and box­er Nigel Paul are among a large field of ath­letes that will bat­tle for this year’s First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion Award on March 26. 

The ath­letes were cho­sen fol­low­ing a thor­ough and ex­haus­tive se­lec­tion process by the Se­lec­tion Com­mit­tee which is head­ed by Dr Ter­ry Ali. 

Box­er Paul, an Olympic par­tic­i­pant in 2016, was a bronze medal win­ner at the AI­BA World Cham­pi­onships in Bel­grade, Ser­bia last year, a feat that en­sured he pock­et­ed US$25, 000 in earn­ings. The re­sults by the su­per heavy­weight fight­er were the best achieve­ment ever by a T&T box­er at the event. Af­ter ex­e­cut­ing a 4-1 vic­to­ry over Al­ba­nia’s Nel­son Hysa, Paul pro­ceed­ed to en­joy a win over Ay­oub Ghad­fa of Spain by the same mar­gin be­fore clob­ber­ing Turk Be­rat Acar by a 4-1 mar­gin. 

He was even­tu­al­ly beat­en by Rus­sia’s Mark Petro­vskii in the semi­fi­nal. 

Paul’s name-sake cy­clist Nicholas Paul made a name for him­self at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan last year, with more-than-im­pres­sive per­for­mances in the match-sprint and keirin. 

The 23-year old al­so earned a sil­ver medal at the 1 km time tri­al at the UCI Track World Cham­pi­onships in Roubaix, France, last Oc­to­ber, clock­ing 59.269 sec­onds to fin­ish 0.523 sec­onds be­hind Dutch­man Jef­frey Hoog­land. This was fol­lowed by a Paul triple tri­umph at the UCI Na­tions Cup in Cali, Colom­bia, where he won gold medals in the 1 km time tri­al and keirin and sprint. 

Mean­while, Jereem Richards over­came all chal­lenges caused by no trav­el and oth­er train­ing lim­i­ta­tions to seal vic­to­ries in the 200 me­tres at the Pure Ath­let­ics Spring In­vi­ta­tion­al in Cler­mont, Flori­da and the US­ATF Grand Prix meet in Eu­gene, Ore­gon in times of 20.37 and 20.26 sec­onds, re­spec­tive­ly.

An­oth­er high­light was a third-place fin­ish at the US­ATF Gold­en Games in Wal­nut, Cal­i­for­nia, where he clocked 20.20. 

NOM­I­NEES: 

1- Bas­ket­ball (Male), Adri­an Joseph, Bas­ket­ball (Fe­male) Kielle Con­nel­ly

2- Box­ing (Male) Nigel Paul, Juan Ro­driguez

3- Ca­noe Sprint (Male) Nicholas Robin­son; Row­ing (Fe­male) Fe­lice Aisha Chow

4- Chess (Male) Alan-Sa­far Ra­moutar, Chess (Fe­male) Gabriel­la John­son, Zara La Fleur

5- Cy­cling (Male) Nicholas Paul, Ryan D’Abreau;  Cy­cling (Fe­male) Te­niel Camp­bell

6- Foot­ball (Male) Aubrey David; Foot­ball (Fe­male) Ken­nya Cord­ner

7- Hock­ey (Male) Teague Mar­cano,  Nicholas White­man; Hock­ey (Fe­male) Sha­ni­ah De Fre­itas, Tahi­rah Wynne

8- Horse Rac­ing (Male) Bri­an Boodram­s­ingh

9- Ju­do (Male) Aidan Greaves; Ju­do (Fe­male) Gabriel­la Wood.

10- Net­ball (Fe­male) Saman­tha Wal­lace

11- Sail­ing (Male) An­drew Lewis, Ste­fan Stüven

12- Shoot­ing (Male) Thomas Nicholas; Shoot­ing (Fe­male) Karen D’Abreu

13- Swim­ming (Male) Dy­lan Carter, Nikoli Black­man; Swim­ming (Fe­male)  Cherelle Thomp­son, Zoe An­tho­ny

14- Ta­ble Ten­nis (Male) Khaleel As­gar­ali, Der­ron Dou­glas; Ta­ble Ten­nis (Fe­male) Rheann Chung, Chloe Fras­er

15- Ten­nis (Male) Kam­ran McIn­tosh-Ross, Louis Kale Dal­la Cos­ta; Ten­nis (Fe­male) Aal­isha Alex­is, Jor­dane Dook­ie

16- Track and Field (Male) Jereem Richards, Sha­keem McK­ay; Track and Field (Fe­male) Tyra Git­tens, Janae de Gannes

17- Vol­ley­ball (Male) Daynte Stew­art, Nicholas Williams; Vol­ley­ball (Fe­male) Rayquelle Dick­son, Natas­sia Bap­tiste