World champions Shericka Jackson and Antonio Watson have been honored with the celebrated RJRGLEANER Sports activities Basis’s Nationwide Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Yr awards, which have been introduced at The Jamaica Pegasus Resort in New Kingston on Friday evening.
Jackson’s outstanding 2023 season culminated in her Nationwide Sportswoman of the Yr win. Throughout the season, she efficiently defended her girls’s 200-meter title on the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, setting a brand new nationwide report with a formidable time of 21.41 seconds, the second-fastest time ever within the occasion.
She additionally claimed silver medals in each the ladies’s 100 meters and the 4×100 meters on the World Championships earlier than securing Diamond League titles in each the 100 meters and 200 meters.
Jackson’s excellent efficiency
Regardless of lacking out on the ladies’s World Athlete of the Yr award to Kenyan middle-distance runner Religion Kipyegon final month, Jackson’s excellent efficiency earned her the coveted award on the evening.
On the lads’s aspect, Watson obtained the Sportsman of the Yr award for the primary time. Watson closed out a memorable 2023 season by clinching his first senior title with a time of 44.22 seconds, defeating Britain’s Matthew Hudson-Smith.
Watson, who had been a rising star since his days on the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Ladies’ Athletics Championships throughout an illustrious junior profession, lastly obtained recognition for his achievements. He additionally set a brand new private better of 44.13 seconds within the World Championships semi-finals, securing Jamaica’s first males’s 400 meters title in 40 years, the final being gained by Bert Cameron through the inaugural staging of the World Championships in Helsinki in 1983.
Folks’s Selection Award
Watson’s distinctive run within the males’s 400-meter remaining on the World Championships additionally earned him the Folks’s Selection Award.
Different notable winners on the awards ceremony included Reggae Boyz captain Andre Blake, who obtained his sixth Athlete of the Yr award within the soccer class. Moreover, Fraser McConnell and Sara Misir have been acknowledged because the female and male Athletes of the Yr within the motorsports class.
