Let’s reward them

Main Stories, Sports
Source:

The National – Wednesday, February 2, 2011

By TRAVERTZ MABONE
NCD Governor Powes Parkop called on sports men and women to continue to strive to improve themselves and their efforts would not go unnoticed during the launching of sports biggest awards, the SP Sports Awards, yesterday in Port Moresby.
Sponsor SP Brewery with this year’s theme “Going for Gold” announced K150,000 for the annual event.
SP business development manager Reg Monagi said this was 19th year the brewer had been in partnership with the PNG Sports Federation and Olympic Committee and the Sports Foundation for recognising athletes,administrators and technical officials for outstanding contributions to sports.
“As we prepare for the 2015 Pacific Games it is appropriate to have this year’s theme as ‘Go for Gold’ which is something that SP Brewery aspires to and I hope we can all start to get behind our sports men and women and help them on the road to  when the Pacific Games comes our way,” Monagi said.
The awards’ support  sponsors included The National newspaper, Air Niugini, Crowne Plaza, EMTV, FM100, and Theodist.
Governor Parkop took the opportunity to acknowledge SP Brewery for its continuous support and contribution to sport in this country particularly through the awards.
“Now in its 19th year, these awards continue to recognise the commitment and achievement of our athletes, coaches, administrators and reporters not only in achieving sporting excellence on the international stage but also their highly important role in developing sport.”
He added that the creation of the Ministry of Sports as a function on its own was a clear demonstration of the government’s commitment to use sports as a vehicle to help address  social issues confronting development.
“Through this we hope to see a lot of talent come through and I appeal to all national sporting federations and the general public to honour your sportsmen, women, teams, administrators and reporters by nominating them for one of the 13 different categories in the SP Sports Awards,” Parkop said.
He said NCD would be centre stage when PNG hosts the 2015 Pacific Games and they had a lot of work to do in making sure PNG’s best were ready to do the country proud.
“The awards are not an incentive for outstanding athletes but are rewards for outstanding efforts towards sports and this year’s awards aimed at kick starting the athletes preparations for 2015.”
He also encouraged members of the sporting public to think of an athlete, team, technical official and administrator that has performed well during the year and nominate them for these prestigious awards.