Cleveland Forde and Nicolette Fernandes landed the prestigious Sportsman and Sportswoman-of-the-Year titles respectively when the National Sports Commission (NSC) panel met yesterday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

As expected, Fernandes, who turned in a number of impressive performances on the international squash circuit, culminating in winning the Most Improved Squash Player Award at the Women’s International Squash Players Association (WISPA) awards ceremony last year, was a runaway winner.

The 23-year-old Fernandes began 2006 ranked 49th in the world but upset wins over a number of world-ranked players saw her surging to an all-time high position of 29th in the world at the end of 2006.

Forde, who is based in Kenya, was a clear winner in the male category with Gairy St Clair, who won two world boxing titles last year, being the runner-up.

Forde’s achievements last year included breaking the national 5,000m record, set by George De Peana in 1959, at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia, winning a gold and a silver medal in the 5,000m and 1,500m respectively at the South American Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina and winning the Guyana leg of the South American 10K event.

The runner-up Sports-woman-of-the-Year award went to 18-year-old Christine Sukhram who, last year at 17-years of age, became the youngest local female golfer to win the Guyana Open tournament.

Sukhram was not nominated for the junior Sportswoman-of-the-Year award which went to table tennis player Trenace Lowe who got the nod over runner-up Alika Morgan.

The Stanford Twenty20 cricket team was voted the Team-of-the Year ahead of the ‘Golden Jaguars’ football team.

The junior Sportsman-of-the-Year award was won by Niall Roberts with Gajanand Singh taking the runner-up position.

Albert Smith was adjudged Sports Coach of the Year ahead of Sherlock Solomon while Joseph `Reds’ Pereira won the male Sports Personality of the Year award.

Dr Karen Pilgrim of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association was a repeat winner of the female Sports Personality-of-the-Year award while Rawle Welch of Kaieteur News won the Sports Journalist-of-the-Year award for print media workers.

The Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) won the Sports Association-of-the-Year award while the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) was voted the Most Improved Association.

Leeron Brummell won the Sports Journalist-of-the-Year non-print award from colleague Avinash Ramzan while veteran photographer Winston Oudkerk defeated Lawrence Fanfair in the Sports Journalist (Photographer) category.

The award for Persons with Disabilities (PWD) was won by Taruna Patrick who won two gold medals and a silver medal at the Trinidad and Tobago national Special Olympic Games last year.