Local athletes to be recognized at Sport Council Achievements Awards
Lethbridge athletes, coaches and volunteers will be recognized at next month’s annual Lethbridge Sport Council Achievements Awards. On April 6, 15 awards will be presented at the Enmax Center.
Lethbridge Sport Council chief executive Susan Eymann says all recipients serve as role models for aspiring athletes, coaches, leaders and officials. She adds that she was excited to receive nominations for sports officials, which the council doesn’t see every year. A change has also been made in the coaching category to show recognition to more community members.
“It’s the first year that we’ve officially split the Coaching Excellence Award to include both community coaches and high performance,” says Eymann. “Both are equally important, but when you look at nominations it’s difficult to compete with national and Olympic coaches, so we wanted to make sure our community coaches got the recognition they deserve.”
Eymann says this is the first awards ceremony with a lot of activity in esports since the pandemic and it’s exciting to see what’s going on in the community.
“We love this day and the day of the ceremony. Being able to read all the nominations that have come in just teaches you so much about what’s happening in the sports community,” she says. “I love 2023, there is so much happening and 2022 leads to, there was just, everyone was back – they not only trained, they competed, they travelled, the volunteers came back and although it was challenging for some organizations, to get the number of volunteers, the ones that volunteer are there and they are just doing amazing work.”
The award winners are:
- Young Athlete – Payton Shields
- Senior Athlete – Kacie Bosch and Paige Crozen
- Senior Male Athlete – Coby Iwaasa
- Special Olympics – Naomi Liam
- Amateur Team – University of Lethbridge Pronghorns 4x100m Medley Relay Swimming Team
- Coaching Excellence High Performance – Peter Schori
- Coaching Excellence Community Coach – Rob Wood
- Acting Excellency – Lindsey Ducharme
- Volunteering in sport – Peter Kremenik
- Excellence in Business and Sport – Stranville Living Master Builder
- excellent dr Gary Bowie Sporting Event – ATB Financial Lethbridge Rotary Dragon Boat Festival
- Sports Administrator – David Zeeb
- Knud Petersen spirit in sport – Chad Chief Moon
- Servus Credit Union Outstanding Sports Citizen – Kieran Mattice
Tickets for the awards ceremony are on sale now for $20 and $10 for youth. Tickets can be purchased on the Sports Council website.