Tuesday, December 15, 2009
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CASI banquet recognizes region's best By KELSIE JOHNSON ~ NG Sports Reporter ~ kelsie@nasguard.com: A large crowd was on hand to witness the second regional recognition of some of the Caribbean's best athletes at the Caribbean Awards Sports Icons (CASI) year-ending event. The CASI Banquet was held Friday night at SuperClub Breezes. The historical awards banquet, which was first staged in Jamaica last year, is designed to honor all the top athletes from around the region over the last 70 years. This year's winners included Brigitte Foster-Hylton, female athletics; Sir Vivian Richards, cricket; Clyde Best, soccer; Mychal Thompson, basketball; Mike Fennell, administrator/coach; Javier Sotomayor, male athletics; and Emile Griffin in boxing. Attending the banquet were Sir Orville Turnquest, former Governor General of The Bahamas; Desmond Bannister, Minster of Youth, Sports and Culture; Al Hamilton, founder of CASI, Fred Sturrup, CASI Regional Director and members of the executive board of the Bahamas Olympic Association (BOA). Bannister, who brought remarks on the historical occasion, commended Hamilton and the organizers of the event for being able to "brave the odds" and put into substance, the CASI awards. The sports minister said that the awards were designed to convey, in some meaningful, tangible and appropriate way, the admiration and respect of the people of the Caribbean countries for their great men and women of yesteryear who were so largely responsible for creating the framework, by which this region has been able to become a world power in sports. He said: "I therefore take pleasure in expressing the affection of my ministry and the sporting community of The Bahamas for those men and women who had a nurturing hand in institutionalizing the remarkable successes, which we today enjoy as a regional commonwealth of islands. Allow me to say, that tonight's occasion might also be regarded as exceptional, in that for the first time, the stature of the local sporting community is being enhanced by its active and full participation in a prestigious awards ceremony such as this which transcends the ordinary boundaries of our sister countries, uniting them in a singular effort to confirm iconic status on persons who have toiled so hard and labored so long as national and international warriors. "Indeed the athletic success and personal accomplishments of all these great icons are ample evidence of the gifts that were within them - a will power and ambition to succeed, irrespective of the liabilities that they each had to encounter. This is the message that I would wish to place in the hearts of all young people in the Caribbean; to dream and then to pursue that dream so that the day will come when they to will be called upon to receive the same high honor that will be bestowed upon the broad shoulders of the heroes that we seek to recognize tonight." Also receiving awards were Sir Durward Knowles, Thomas Augustus Robinson and the members of the original Bahamian 'Golden Girls' team. Knowles was given the International Sailing Extraordinaire award for his accomplishments on the international arena in sailing. Robinson and the members of the Golden Girls inclusive of Savetheda Fynes, Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, Chandra Sturrup, Eldece Clarke-Lewis and Pauline Davis-Thompson were all honored with lifetime achievement awards.
Monday, November 23, 2009 |
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