Source: www.guardian.co.tt
First Citizens Sports Foundation Sportsman of the Year Roger Daniel hopes that his award will help bring attention to the sport of shooting in T&T. Daniel earned the distinction of becoming the first person from his discipline to be recognised by the Foundation during its annual award ceremony at the National Academy for the Performing Arts on Wednesday night. Speaking to the Guardian after collecting his prize, the 41-year-old said that he would like to see corporate T&T come on board to assist in the sport’s development.“I hope this means a lot to the sport of shooting in T&T and that they realise that we have a lot of potential here in this country,” he said. “We need help to push and really improve our facilities and get programmes in place to encourage more people to get involved and I do hope that it really opens the door for our sport to progress.”
The T&T Defence Force Corporal enjoyed a bright year in 2010, winning two medals (gold and bronze) at the CAC Games in Puerto Rico in July and two more (silver and bronze) at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India in October. His award was especially sweet for several reasons. “It’s overwhelming and I feel great. This is a great achievement for me because it will always go down in history as the first soldier and the first shooter to get this award. I can’t even explain how much that means to me
right now.”
Though excited to be honoured, Daniel said his celebration would not last too long since he needed to “go back to the drawing board” and focus on the challenges ahead. His upcoming schedule will include International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup events in Sydney, Australia in March, Changwon, Korea in April, Fort Benning, USA in May and Munich, Germany in June. While he expected the next few months to be very demanding, he said it would be a necessary sacrifice if he wanted to compete in London in 2012. “2010 was very challenging emotionally and physically. Balancing family life and training was very difficult. We had a few obstacles that created some little ups and downs but we overcame it and were successful,” he said. “It’s very important to go to these international events because you are competing against the best shooters in the world. These are the other guys you will meet at the Olympics.”
Honour Roll 2010
Sportsman of the Year: Roger Daniel
Sportswoman of the Year: Cleopatra Borel Brown
Jeffrey Stollmeyer Award: T&T Netball Association & National Association of the Athletic Administration (shared)
Junior Sportsman of the Year: Christian Homer
Junior Sportswoman of the Year: Cherelle Thompson
Lystra Lewis Award for Top Team: T&T Women’s Hockey Team
Top Ten Athletes of the Year:
Roger Daniel (Shooting), Jehue Gordon (Athletics), George Bovell III (Swimming), Adrian Barath (Cricket), Tariq Abdul Haq (Boxing), Njisane Phillip (Cycling), Cleopatra Borel-Brown (Athletics), Monifa Sealy (Golf), Anisa Mohammed (Cricket) and Kelly Ann Baptiste (Athletics).
Most Memorable Moments of the Year:
Chess player Keron Cabralis becomes T&T’s youngest ever FIDE Master at age 14 at the Inter-Zonal Chess Tournament in Nassau, Bahamas in July.
Middle distance runner Jehue Gordon wins 400m Hurdles Gold at IAAF World Juniors in Moncton, Canada in July.
Cyclist Njisane Phillip wins Match Sprint Gold at CAC Games in Puerto Rico in August
Swimmer Christian Homer wins 50m Backstroke Gold at Youth Olympics in Singapore in August.
Heatwave beats Mr Solo to win the Carib Great Race in August.
Sprinter KellyAnn Baptiste wins 100m and 4x100m Gold at Continental Cup in Split, Croatia in September.
Soca Princesses beat Chile 2-1 at FIFA Under 17 Women’s World Cup at Hasely Crawford Stadium in September.
Boxer Tariq Abdul Haq win Silver in at Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October.
Swimmer Shanntol Ince reaches three Paralympic finals at Commonwealth Games.
Detour Shak Attack’s Orlando Mapp scores nine three-point shots in one game.
Drag Racer Sheldon Bissessar sets new NHRA quater-mile World Record (5.73) at Bradenton, Florida in December.