Nominations open for Gauteng Sports Awards
JOBURG - Nominations for the Gauteng Sports Awards to be held later in the year are now open.
After a number of years competing against each other, the provincial and national spheres of government have finally seen the light and decided to streamline their sports awards.
From now on, the provincial sports awards will be a feeder to the much bigger and more glamorous national South African Sports Awards. This then entails that the provincial sports awards will always be held before the national awards so that provincial award winners will automatically qualify for the voting process of the national awards.
This was announced by Gauteng MEC for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Faith Mazibuko, at Emoyeni Estate in Parktown when she launched the nomination lead-up to the Gauteng Sports Awards to be held at the Silverstar Casino in Mogale City on 2 October.
Nominations for the awards will include athletes who excelled in local, national and international sporting arenas in various sporting codes between 1 July last year and 30 July this year.
There are 19 categories for nominations and they include among others, Sportsman of the Year, Sportswoman of the Year, Sports Team of the Year, Disabled Sportswoman of the Year, Disabled Sportsman of the Year, Disabled Sports Team of the Year, Most Promising Athlete of the Year, and Sport Personality of the Year.
New award categories include School Sports Athlete of the Year, Community Media of the Year (print, radio and TV), Community-based Sport and Recreation Programme of the Year.
The nomination process opened on 1 July and will close on 29 July. This will be followed by a verification process and a finalist adjudication process which concludes on 19 August, after which those nominated will be announced before the end of August and winners at the awards ceremony on 2 October.
Mazibuko said they had also decided to recognise and reward people at a grassroots level.
“I believe that this is the most logical way of conducting these awards and streamlining them complements all our efforts and avoids duplication and the element of competing against each other,” Mazibuko said.
