SPORTING stars, guests and sponsors gathered at the 2016 Herefordshire & Worcestershire Sports Awards to celebrate a sporting year to savour.
Wednesday evening’s event at Worcester Warriors’ Sixways home was truly inspirational as the cream of the two counties’ sporting aces were honoured in front of an audience of around 270.
Award winners included numerous athletes who won medals at the Rio Paralympics and volunteers whose work behind the scenes goes largely unrecognised but without whom the sports stars would not have the platform to perform.
The winner of the headline Sports Personality of the Year accolade sponsored by Bullivant Media was Paralympian swimmer Sascha Kindred OBE, of Hereford.
Among the others to scoop honours was Katinka Ernst of University of Worcester and Disability Sport Worcester, who was crowned Volunteer of the Year, and Malvern mountain biking star Evie Richards who was named Senior Female Sportsperson of the Year.
Redditch-born Paralympian swimmer Claire Cashmore collected the Disabled Sportsperson of the Year trophy, Ian Nash of Redditch Boxing Academy picked up the new BBC Power of Sport Award and Droitwich Paralympian swimmer Rebecca Redfern took the Junior Female Sportsperson of the Year award.
Guest speaker was British swimming legend Sharron Davies MBE who gave an insightful talk into just what it takes to become an elite sporting star.
Look out for next week’s paper for a full list of winners and more pictures from this wonderful event.
