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UWI Announces Nominees for 2017 Sports Awards

For Release Upon Receipt - May 18, 2017

UWI


The second annual Vice-Chancellor’s Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year Awards at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) takes place on Wednesday 24 May, 2017 at the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados. Eleven student athletes from across the University’s four campuses—Cave Hill, Mona, Open and St. Augustine have been nominated, from which one female and one male will receive the top title of Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year.

This year the Awards ceremony coincides with the opening ceremony of The UWI Games—a biennial competition in which UWI students compete against each other in 10 different sports over 9 days. Both the Awards ceremony and the opening of the Games will be combined into one celebration of UWI sporting excellence at the Cave Hill Campus and will be streamed live via www.uwi.tv.org or www.cavehill.uwi.edu/videos/livestream from 3:00 p.m. (Barbados time).

The Vice-Chancellor’s Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year Awards were established in 2016, by Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, to honour top student-athletes for their outstanding performance in academics, athletics, service and leadership. Nominees are registered UWI students, recommended by their coaches and organisations for having excelled at the local and international level and having an acceptable grade point average. After an initial screening by campus selection committees, prospects from each campus are sent forward for further evaluation at the university level. Katherine Wynter, a badminton player from The UWI Mona Campus and Chadwick Walton, cricketer from The UWI Cave Hill Campus copped the inaugural awards, last year.

The 2017 nominees are as follows:

Cave Hill Campus

Rieah Holder, Netball

Jairo Lombardo, Football 

Akeem Rudder, Hockey 

Mona Campus

Shimona Nelson, Netball, Basketball and Javelin

Mark Blake, Volleyball

 Open Campus

Esther Ward, Football 

Darren Young, Track

St. Augustine Campus

Nyoshia Cain, Track

Catherine Spicer, Table Tennis

Amir Jangoo, Cricket

Vikash Mohan, Cricket

The 2017 UWI Games continue a biennial UWI tradition. This is the major sporting event for the four UWI campuses. It provides one of the few opportunities where students can get together as one University sharing in collective although competitive activity. Over 500 athletes from across the Caribbean will take part in the 10 sporting disciplines (basketball, football, tennis, swimming, table tennis, track and field, volleyball, cricket, netball and 6-a-side hockey) and more than 30 regional sponsors have contributed funding and supplies towards the Games themed: The Making of Champions. The UWI Games also facilitate a major community outreach activity where many of The UWI athletes will mentor juniors from several of Cave Hill’s neighbouring primary schools.

A new feature of this year’s UWI Games is the OneUWI app, designed to take The UWI Games to a wider audience. The app was developed by 24-year-old Theo Taylor, a student in the Department of Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics at Cave Hill, with the support of department head, Dr Janak Sodha. It enables UWI staff, students, alumni and well-wishers to view athlete profiles and follow the sporting events, results and statistics and more. The OneUWI app is currently accessible on Google Play and will be available for download on Apple iTunes before the tournament starts.

Speaking on the Games, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee and Deputy Principal of Cave Hill, Professor Clive Landis said, “The Games come on the heels of a plan by The UWI to develop a Faculty of Sport which received official approval when The UWI Council met in Barbados recently”. He added, “It’s the first faculty that the University will be creating in 40 years. I think it can really thrive because in the Caribbean we tend to focus on the academic excellence but we don’t really have the same level of support for the development of the industry that stands behind sporting excellence.”

End.

About The UWI

Since its inception in 1948, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a fully-fledged, regional University with over 50,000 students. Today, The UWI is the largest, most longstanding higher education provider in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with three physical Campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and an Open Campus. The UWI serves 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, The British Virgin Islands, The Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos. The UWI’s faculty and students come from more than 40 countries and The University has collaborative links with 160 universities globally; it offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Food and Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities and Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology and Social Sciences. The UWI’s seven priority focal areas are linked closely to the priorities identified by CARICOM and take into account such over-arching areas of concern to the region as environmental issues, health and wellness, gender equity and the critical importance of innovation.

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.) www.uwi.edu

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