Shivnarine Chanderpaul has emerged as a very popular candidate for the Sportsman-of-the-Year award when members of the selection panel sit down to select the 2007 National Sports Commission awardees today.
The 33-year-old had an outstanding 2007, constantly churning out productive batting performances for the West Indies team against England and South Africa when the West Indies toured those countries last year and has landed most of the nominations received by the National Sports Commission.
The other contenders are national rugby player and captain of the West Indies Rugby Union Sevens team Claudius Butts, athlete Kelvin Johnson, taekwando athlete David Rajjab and national footballer Nigel Codrington.
The race for Sportswoman-of-the-Year will be wide open in the absence of the injured Nicolette Fernandes, last year’s runaway winner.
Three athletes Marian Burnett, Alika Morgan, Alicia Fortune will vie with table tennis player Michelle John for that accolade.
The contenders for the junior Sportswoman-of-the-Year award are last year’s winner, table tennis star Trenace Lowe, Morgan, the multi-talented Ashley Khalil, squash player Kayla Jeffery and badminton player Rose Mendes.
The list for the junior Sportsman-of-the-Year award is quite long and the contenders are boxer, Clive Atwell, a Pan Am Games bronze medalist, athlete Denis Horatio, cyclists Alonzo Greaves, Christopher Holder and Geron Williams, rugby players Dane Parks and Satesh Samaroo, squash player Alex Arjoon, table tennis player Nigel Bryan, national Under-19 cricket captain Stephen Jacobs and young badminton star Narayan Ramdhani.
The contenders for the Sports Coach-of-the-Year are Carl Franklyn, Gokarn Ramdhani, Linden Johnson, Carl Ince, Hubern Evans and Sherlock Solomon.
The contenders for the Sports Team-of-the-Year award are the national rugby Sevens team, the national girls’ squash team, the Guyana national under-19 cricket team and the Guyana cycling team which participated in the junior Caribbean championships in Barbados.
The contenders for the Most Improved Association are the Guyana Amateur Boxing Association, the Guyana Hockey Federation, the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association and the Guyana Rugby Union.
The contenders for the female Sports Personality-of-the-Year are Ramona Agard, Maxine Parris-Aaron, Stephanie Fraser, Dianne Ferreira James and Cynthia Jeffrey.
The contenders for the Male Sports Personality-of-the-Year are Chetram Singh, Godfrey Munroe, Affeeze Khan and Philip Fernandes.
The Sports journalists vying for the Sports Journalist-of-the-Year award (print) are Troy Peters, Faizool Deo, Sean Devers, Franklyn Wilson and last year’s winner Rawle Welch.
There is no category for sports photographers but there is a category for sports journalist/photographer and the contenders are Franklyn Wilson, Lawrence Fanfair and Winston Oudkerk.
The Sports Journalist-of-the-Year (non-print) contenders are Leeron Brummell, Iva Wharton, Avinash Ramzan and Rawle Toney.
The Sports Association of-the year award will go to one of the following: the Guyana Rugby Football Union, Guyana Hockey Board of Control, the Guyana Squash Association, the Guyana Cricket Board or the Guyana Football Federation.
