THE North Queensland Sports Foundation is delighted that this year’s North Queensland Sportstar Awards has reached the twenty-third year milestone since the first Awards night was held in 1991, with Brad Beven the world champion triathlete winning the senior award that year.
Since then the Awards has been held in venues all over North Queensland, hosted by most of the member Councils of the North Queensland Sports Foundation.
This year’s Awards were held at the Arthur Titley Centre and were hosted by the Charters Towers Regional Council in conjunction with the North Queensland Sports Foundation. The glittering night was attended by over 140 guests.
The judging of the nominees was very difficult due to the high standards that have been set in numerous sports. In a total of four categories of Awards (senior, junior, athlete with a disability and service to North Queensland sport), the North Queensland Sports Foundation has received a total of 30 nominations.
President of the North Queensland Sports Foundation, Margaret Cochrane, is delighted with the high standard of nominees that have been received.
“It is once again very pleasing that we have received a large number of nominees and in a varied range of sporting achievements,” she said.
The senior winner which was Tennille Falappi from Cairns who received $2000 and now goes on to represent North Queensland at the State Awards in Brisbane later in December. The winner of the Junior Award was Kristen Wadley who will receive $1000. Para-Olympian David Nicholas was the recipient of the Athlete with a Disability Award and accepted his award via a message as he was recovering from surgery and could not attend.
The Service to North Queensland Sport award, which was initiated to honour the unsung hero, the person who tends to be the backbone of their sport, continued to be well supported by a large number of nominees. The winner of the category this year was Maurie Soars from Townsville who has raised the profile and participation of AFL in the Townsville region. Maurie was presented with a voucher from Rydges Hotel, a trophy and a commemorative jacket.
