Brown, Manswell in line for WITCO award

SPRINTER DARREL Brown and heavyweight boxer Kerston Manswell are neck-and-neck in the running for the West Indian Tobacco (WITCO) Sports Fou-ndation 2002 Sportsman of the Year accolade. The 41st edition of the awards ceremony —- where the Sportswoman of the Year 2002 will also be announced —- takes place from 8 pm at the Hilton Trinidad.

The 18-year-old Brown had a sensational 2002 season, where he won the 100 metres titles at the respective events —- World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica (where he clocked a personal best time of 10.09 seconds), CARIFTA Games in Nassau, Bahamas and Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Junior Champio-nships in St Michael, Barbados. Manswell, a Roxbor-ough, Tobago native, took the gold medal at the Caribbean Champ-ionships in Martinique and, during the year, he added two silver medals following the Common-wealth Games in Manchester, England and the CAC Games in El Salvador.

In line for the Sportswoman of the Year title are Giselle Salandy and 2001 winner Rheann Chung. The 15-year-old Salandy shrugged off the controversy  regarding her legality in fighting as a child to defeat Colombian Paola Rojas by a unanimous decision to claim the Women’s International Boxing  Association (WIBA) Latin American junior welterweight belt in Curacao. And Chung, yet another teenager (aged 17), had commendable re-sults at the Common-wealth Games and at the Criterium Federal National tournament in Lille, France, where she resides. Also on the agenda tonight will be the presentation of the Jeffrey Stollmeyer Memorial Award for the year’s most outstanding Sports Association.