Speeches from three continents highlight St. Catharines Sports Awards

With Zoom calls from Daugavpils, Latvia; Portland, Oregon, and two Victorian cities in British Columbia; The State of Australia – Monday night’s celebrations at St. Catherine’s City Hall to honor the city’s best athletes over the past two years were staged in ABC’s Wide of Sports.

Unlike this series of anthology, which ran from 1961 to 1998, the 2020 and 2021 awards emphasized the “passion for victory” rather than “the torture of defeat.” Two Olympians and two 2019-2020 The members of the women’s sports basketball team at U Sports Brock University have been recognized for their achievements, including overcoming difficulties.

Woodwine Christena Keith and long-distance runner Muhammad Ahmad shared the 2021 Jimmy Joy Memorial Cup after they both won a medal at Canada’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Cate, a cross-country runner who began rowing as a comforting sport when she was a ninth-grader at Sir Winston Churchill High School, led the women’s eighth place in Canada’s first gold medal in rowing since 1996.

Ahmed, who was born in Mogadishu, Somalia and was 11 years old when his family moved to St. Catherine after 10 years in Kenya, Ahmed made his hometown proud by jumping from sixth place in the 10,000m men to 5,000m silver. after a week.

Kate, 33, almost received an award from Victoria in British Columbia, where she is training for the Canadian national team, and her landmarks have already been set for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.

Ahmed, 31, lives in Oregon and competes with Bowerman Track Club, a Portland training group for professional distance runners sponsored by Nike Inc.

In her remarks, a graduate of St. Catherine’s College said that St. Catherine “will always be my home” regardless of her current title, and thanked the Niagara Olympic Club and coach Sharon Stewart for their role in her running as a runner.

Kate and Ahmed are the first Olympic athletes to be honored as Athlete of the Year in the same year since the award in 1968. Kate also represented Canada at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, where she won a bronze medal. Ahmed was ranked 18th in the 10,000th London Summer Olympics and 5,000 in Rio de Janeiro four years later.

This is the fourth time the Mo Speed ​​Runner has been recognized as a St. Catharines Athlete of the Year. He also won the award in 2009, 2016 and 2019.

Paul Coout received the Rex Steamers Memorial Award for his instrumental role in integrating the development of junior lacrosse. Catherine under one roof. Some organizations led athletics for juniors and the B Spartans junior team before the change, which greatly facilitated the movement of players between the two junior programs.

The longtime community volunteer also worked with the Ontario Junior-A Lacrosse League to host the championship for three weekends after COVID-19 threatened to cancel the season for the second year in a row. St. Catharines won the singles tournament in Ocville.

While Sam Kiltuss and Melissa Tate were Honorary Athletes of the Year 2020 for outstanding performance on the basketball court for Brick University’s head coach Mike Rau, St. Catherine’s Best Athlete of 2020, the restrictions of the pandemic prevented them from being officially recognized for them. . Achievements. The organizers of the television ceremony, which took place in the council premises before the council meeting on Monday evening, decided to honor the winners in each of the last two years.

Rao, a retired teacher from Wellend who led the senior team of Boys at Notre Dame College for 36 years before taking over the Brook Women’s Program, attended the ceremony in person, as did the Athlete of the Year 2021. Catharines Athletics Lacrosse. Paul Couts, president of the club.

Keltos and Tatti participated in Zoom calls. Keltos, a Churchill graduate who moved to Brooke St. after three seasons in NCAA Division I. Francis spends his first year in the Australian Grand League in the Western Port Steelers at Brooklyn, New York. The spring-summer season is scheduled to end in August.

Teita, who played her high school hoops at Bishop Tonus in Ankaster, is a Latvian who plays for Daugavels University of Pullman in the Latvian Civeso Baspola League, the Latvian League.

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