Track stars dominate nominations for RJR Sports Foundation Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year award

 Ryon Jones, Gleaner Writer

Despite this not being an Olympic or World Championship year, track and field athletes dominated the list of nominees for the 2010 RJR Sports Foundation Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year award.

Five of the seven female nominees were from this discipline, along with seven of the 10 male nominees. The sportsman and sportswoman will be announced at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel on January 21, 2011.

The battle for the female crown is expected to be between Trecia-Kaye Smith, Veronica Campbell-Brown and outstanding cricketer Stephanie Taylor.

Smith leapt 14.19 metres to capture the gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, while Campbell-Brown ran a personal-best time of 7.00 seconds - the fastest winning time for 11 years - to strike gold in the women's 60 metres race at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar.

Impressive feat

Taylor scored a tournament-topping 390 runs in five matches at the ICC Women's Cricket Challenge tournament in South Africa. This included a century of 147 and three half-centuries.

The other female nominees are Alia Atkinson, Sheree Francis, Kaliese Spencer and Nickiesha Wilson.

The male category is lead by Dorian Scott who tossed 18.93 metres to take gold at the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games in Puerto Rico, He also won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games. Usain Bolt is also a part of the line-up and is expected to feature prominently if for nothing else but the fact that he is Bolt. The list is rounded off by Nesta Carter, Commonwealth Games 100 metres champion Lerone Clarke, Christopher Gayle, Errol Kerr, Asafa Powell, Lansford Spence, Brendan Nash and Jermaine Gonzales.

There is also the people's choice award, which encourages the general public to text in and vote for their favourite performance by one of the six nominees. The contenders are Veronica Campbell-Brown, Nesta Carter, Keammar Daley, Christopher Gayle, Jermaine Gonzales and Georgina Sergeon.

Special categories

There will be category awards, which will see an outstanding sportsman or sportswoman being named for the major sporting disciplines. Special awards will be presented to athletes in the junior category, teams, relay teams and national teams. Certificate of merits will be presented to persons who have served sports in some capacity.

This is the 50th year of the awards ceremony, but marks the fifth and ultimate year of the RJR Sports Foundation commitment to organising the event. To mark the various milestones, the chairman's award has been replaced with two lifetime achievement awards.

"The management and the board of the group will review and revise after this staging and a definitive decision will be made and an announcement will be made as to whether or not we will be going for another five years period or not," chairman of the RJR Sports Foundation, Gary Allen, informed while speaking at the launch of the event, yesterday at The Jamaica Pegasus.

Olympian Dr Edwin Moses will be the guest speaker at this year's function, which will be broadcast throughout the Caribbean and South Florida in the United States of America.