By: Monelisi Sigabi
This year’s Sports and Recreation Awards ceremony and reception recognized the achievements of individuals, sporting codes and teams that have excelled both on and off the field at the East London International Convention Centre Friday night.
MEC of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Fezeka Bayeni opened the ceremony highlighting the role played by the award recipients in flying the province’s flag high.
“It is important to celebrate and appreciate those that contribute towards elevating our province to new highs, as the home of legends. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners but also encourage the nominees that did not win, to not give up,” said Bayeni.
Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane took to the fore to challenge every sporting body and federation working with local and provincial government to be champion-minded in grooming the next world champions in the province.
“Our provincial development plan includes targets for sport where our people are connected and reach their full human potential. This includes sports development because sport is a valuable and important component for the economic and human growth in our province,” he said.
Further, Mabuyane announced that he will be introducing the Premier’s cup.
“As the premier of this province I want to introduce the Premiers Cup which is aimed at developing talent. This cup will allow all sporting codes in the province to participate,” said Mabuyane.
The cup will be a key component of developing champions in our province. Squads representing local municipalities will be selected to compete at district level and squads from each district will be selected.
All the teams from the districts and two metros, Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro will play each other at provincial level. Players to be selected from the cup will represent the province in a number of national sporting platforms.
With a total of 105 deserving nominees under 25 categories including the MEC Excellence Award, 66-year-old Robert Xavier from Butterworth was presented with the Sportsman of the Year award in the Golden Age category.
“It feels great to win, I have always been a winner since 2013. I won 3 international gold medals in February,” said Xavier.
Sportswoman of the Year award winner Elizabeth Barry expressed how overjoyed she was and plans on not taking any breaks from Power-lifting.
“It is a proud moment and it could be a start of new things to come for the sport. I am going to The Africa Champs and also World Masters to represent South Africa,” she said.
The night’s big winner Luvo Manyonga who could not make it to the ceremony walked away with the Sportsman of the Year and Sports Star of the Year awards, he also won a brand-new VW Polo Vivo sponsored by JOMA Sports.