T&T’s Olympic javelin throw­er Keshorn Wal­cott ex­pect­ed­ly walked away with the Se­nior “Sports­man of the Year” award along­side cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell, who told the au­di­ence that she plans to be the first fe­male cy­clist to medal at the Olympic Games, when the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion Awards at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) was held in Port-of-Spain Sat­ur­day night.

​Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo pre­sent­ed the awards to both ath­letes, while Jaden Marchan (ath­let­ics) and Janae De Gannes (ath­let­ics) se­cured the Ju­nior Awards.

​Wal­cott, who was al­so vot­ed the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) “Sports­man of the Year,” was fa­vored to take the se­nior men’s ti­tle fol­low­ing a year in which he dom­i­nat­ed the field. Last year, he de­liv­ered a sea­son’s best throw of 88.16 me­tres to se­cure gold at the World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships. De­spite a heavy down­pour dur­ing that com­pe­ti­tion, the Lon­don 2012 gold medal­list seized con­trol ear­ly. Wal­cott opened with 81.22m, surged in­to the lead on his sec­ond at­tempt at 87.83m. How­ev­er, his de­liv­ery of 88.16 me­tres laid the ex­cla­ma­tion mark on the pro­ceed­ings.

​Camp­bell, on the oth­er hand, showed tremen­dous willpow­er re­turn­ing from in­jury to claim the women’s points race gold and elim­i­na­tion race bronze at the Pan Am Track Cham­pi­onships. Apart from set­ting her sights on an Olympic berth, Camp­bell is ex­pect­ed to rep­re­sent T&T at the up­com­ing Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Chile.

Both ath­letes were giv­en the nod from a short­list of 10 ath­letes, who were se­lect­ed from a group of over 90 ath­letes for both ju­nior and se­nior acte­gories. The se­nior “Top 10” in­clud­ed Wal­cott, Leah Bertrand (the TTOC’s fe­male award win­ner), pow­er­lifters Kezia Hunte and Joseph Mc Don­ald, cy­clist Nicholas Paul, Camp­bell, Akeem Stew­art (para-ath­lete), Kar­ish­ma Ramharack (crick­et), and ta­ble ten­nis ace Chloe Fras­er, who was al­so named among the top 10 ju­nior ath­letes.

​The ju­nior list al­so fea­tured Kyra Williams (cy­cling), Je­lani Nedd (cy­cling), De Gannes (ath­let­ics), Sama­ra Ram­nath (crick­et), Zuri Fer­gu­son (swim­ming), Liam Car­ring­ton (swim­ming), Ama­ra Urquhart (bad­minton), Jaden Marchan (ath­let­ics), and An­to­nio Fran­cis (pow­er­lift­ing).

​De Gannes, who earned sil­ver in the long jump at the 2023 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, cap­tured bronze at the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay last year. She jumped a dis­tance of 6.33m on her first at­tempt to se­cure her podi­um spot, fin­ish­ing be­hind Colom­bia’s Na­talia Linares (first) and Cu­ba’s Ros­mai­by Que­sa­da (sec­ond).

​Mean­while, Marchan, a quar­ter­mil­er, clinched sil­ver in the men’s 400m fi­nal at the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Am Games in Asun­ción, Paraguay. He re­spond­ed from fifth place at the fi­nal bend, dis­play­ing tremen­dous strength to take sec­ond in 45.80 sec­onds, just be­hind Ja­maica’s Jasauna Den­nis, who set a new Games record of 45.46.

Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts praised the ath­letes ahead of the awards, say­ing the cer­e­mo­ny has for more than six decades been the heart­beat of our sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and it is clear that the pulse of T&T’s sport­ing ex­cel­lence is stronger than ever.

“Since the foun­da­tion’s in­cep­tion in 1962, the very year of our in­de­pen­dence, gen­er­a­tions of sports­men and sports­women have built a lega­cy ground­ed in dis­ci­pline, sac­ri­fice and pas­sion. We do not ho­n­our the names of leg­ends like Roger Gib­bon or Hais­ley Craw­ford out of nos­tal­gia alone. We ho­n­our them be­cause their achieve­ments cre­at­ed the run­way from which to­day’s ath­letes now launch them­selves on­to the world stage.

“The 2025 sea­son was a pow­er­ful re­minder of that mo­men­tum. From see­ing Keis­hon Wal­cott re­claim glob­al glo­ry in Tokyo to the courage and con­sis­ten­cy shown by Jer­erm Richards and so many oth­ers, our ath­letes reaf­firmed that T&T re­mains a se­ri­ous con­tender in the in­ter­na­tion­al sport. Host­ing the Carif­ta games here at home last year added an­oth­er lay­er of pride, and our young ath­letes’ broke records, raised stan­dards and cap­tured the imag­i­na­tion of the en­tire Caribbean.”

T&T’s trio of Je­lani Nedd, Ja­van Ram­roop and Ju­dah Nev­er­son cap­tured the Lystra Lewis “Team of the Year” award for their gold medal per­for­mance at the Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Li­ma, Pe­ru.

Led by coach Robert Far­ri­er, the trio de­feat­ed Colom­bia’s team of Mar­tin Gomez, Juan Jose Pala­cio and Cami­lo Yara Juan in the fi­nal, clock­ing a nip­py 46.061 sec­onds to claim top po­si­tion. In the process, the T&T team al­so set a new na­tion­al ju­nior team sprint record. Nedd, who shat­tered the ju­nior sprint record at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va, a year ago, rode the open­ing leg of the sprint, hand­ing an ear­ly lead to Ram­roop, who main­tained the ad­van­tage in the sec­ond leg.

Nev­er­son made sure in the fi­nal leg that took the team and the coun­try past the fin­ish line in blis­ter­ing speed for the gold medal.

In the pre­lim­i­nary round, T&T qual­i­fied as the fastest team with 46.790 sec­onds.

At the cer­e­mo­ny, four ath­letes were in­duct­ed in­to the Hall of Fame posthu­mous­ly; they are Car­men Eileen King (ath­let­ics), Sharon Cas­tana­da (net­ball/bas­ket­ball), Fer­di De Gannes (cy­cling), and Roland Charles (ta­ble ten­nis).