Trinidad and Tobago celebrated the excellence of two distinctive athletes, Jereem Richards and Michelle-Lee Ahye, as they had been topped the “Athletes of the 12 months” for 2023 on the annual awards ceremony hosted by the Nationwide Affiliation of Athletics Administration of Trinidad and Tobago (NAAATT).
The occasion passed off on the Radisson Lodge in Port-of-Spain on Saturday, the place these athletes had been acknowledged for his or her excellent achievements.
Richards, a distinguished sprinter representing the Abilene Wildcats, claimed the boys’s “Athlete of the 12 months” honor for the sixth time. His earlier victories got here in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022. Richards’ outstanding achievements in 2023 included securing a gold medal within the males’s 400 meters on the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Video games in El Salvador. Throughout this competitors, he set a private finest time of 44.54 seconds.
Moreover, Richards performed a pivotal position in anchoring Trinidad and Tobago’s males’s 4x400m workforce to victory on the CAC Video games. Regardless of being the one native athlete to achieve the semi-final spherical on the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Richards concluded the yr with the 18th quickest 400m time (44.54) globally. He additionally achieved the twenty fifth quickest time (20.08) within the 200m.
Eight-time winner
Michelle-Lee Ahye, a famend sprinter and a gold medalist on the 2018 Commonwealth Video games, earned the ladies’s “Athlete of the 12 months” title following her spectacular bronze medal efficiency within the ladies’s 100m on the Pan American Video games in Santiago, Chile, on October 31. This marked her eighth time receiving the highest ladies’s award, having beforehand completed this feat in 2022, 2021, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2013.
Along with honoring the senior athletes, the junior “Athletes of the 12 months” had been acknowledged as properly. Sanaa Frederick, a US-born athlete, obtained the junior feminine trophy after her victory within the Carifta Women Beneath-20 200m within the Bahamas, alongside along with her contribution to Trinidad and Tobago’s silver medals within the ladies’ U-20 4x100m and 4x400m relay occasions. Tafari Waldron, representing the Cougars Athletic Membership, secured the Carifta boys’ U-20 5,000m title.
Notably, Richards and Michelle-Lee Ahye weren’t in attendance on the awards ceremony. As these accolades had been distributed to those distinctive athletes, the occasion additionally acknowledged Janae De Gannes and Imani Matthew because the Youth “Athletes of the 12 months,” whereas Kernesha Shelbourne obtained the President’s Rising Star Award.
