The Sportsman of the Year is Clayton Castaldi, while Tenishia Thornton is the Sportswoman of the Year. This became known after the announcement of the winners of this year’s edition of the National Sports Choices, which recognize the sporting achievements of the year 2023. All the winners were chosen from 36 finalists in 9 categories in these the awards.
The honour of Young Male Person of the Year and Young Female Person of the Year went to Jake Castaldi and Kim Camilleri Lagan respectively.
Manuela Tesse was awarded the Best Coach of the Year, while Christabel D’Amato is the Best Official of the Year. The Team of the Year is the National Women’s Football Team, the People’s Choice Award went to Sophie St John, while the honor of Sport for Social Change Award went to Fgura United FC.
The evening was chaired by the Minister for Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation Clifton Grima who congratulated all the winners, everyone who was with the finalists and all those who during the last year they were instrumental in raising the name of our country in this sector.
He mentioned how our country continues to become a sports center, with a number of international Championships and Competitions taking place among us. “Malta will once again host two prestigious events when next June in our country we will welcome for the first time the biggest aquatic event ever held in Malta, the World Aquatics Men’s U16 Water Polo Championships. We will also see the Final 4 Champions League among us”, said Minister Grima.
Minister Grima went on to say, “This is a legacy of the investment we made both in the facilities and in the athletes themselves, but also a result of several international competitions that our country has successfully hosted, including the Special Olympics, events of -UEFA as well as the Small Countries Games which in addition to success on an organizational level we also had unprecedented sporting successes.”
This shows the commitment of the government to raise the level of sport in our country so that together with all those involved in this sector, we continue to achieve results not only that honor the sportsmen on an individual basis, but also collectively as a country.
The President of the Sports Journalists Association Sandro Micallef also addressed this evening. All semi-finalists were awarded a souvenir certificate.
