THE award season fast approaches. Sure, we can fairly accurately surmise who will be the leading protagonists for the big ‘gongs’ dished out at our own Sports Commission awards night and what we in the media business affectionately know as ‘SPOTY’, but it does not make the big events any less interesting.

For those of you who are unsure of what SPOTY is, well it is the glitzy Sportingbet Channel Islands Sports Personality of the Year awards, hosted by Channel Television. It hops between Guernsey and Jersey every year.

Just as is the case with the Sports Commission night, SPOTY has delivered an appropriate level of recognition to what is best about CI sport and its leading performers.

When I think back to the dreary days of the old Guernsey Sports Council award nights, delivered with its heart in the right place but with perhaps a lack of imagination and certainly on a shoestring and with entertainment certainly not on the agenda, it only serves to highlight just how far Guernsey sport has come in a relatively short time.

We are flying and, in the main, travelling at a slightly higher altitude than Jersey sport which, considering history and the relative populations, is no mean achievement in itself.

The awards ceremonies are keeping pace with the increasing professionalism of mainstream sport in the islands, although there are the odd notable exceptions to that rule.

There are some mainstream sports who don’t seem to progress like they should, but there are many more successes than failures and with that in mind and the approaching awards nights, I believe it is time to reward those sports and clubs who have been most progressive in upping their game.

It is probably too late for the January jaunts, but perhaps for 2013 it could be seen to introduce at both island and pan-island level, a ‘Sport of the Year’ category, sitting above the ‘team of ….’ section.

While conscious that too many awards are like too many cooks, public recognition of a sport which has outshone its peers in terms of development, achievement and perhaps even event staging, would surely not go amiss.

Were it to happen in 2012 I would have no problem coming up with a Guernsey shortlist and picking a winner.

That would be the Guernsey Velo Club, an organisation which is only recognisable to someone whose dealings with it go back approaching 40 years by the fact that Allan Renyard is still very much at the heart of the sport, beavering away in the background as the Hortons, McLaughlins, Bowditches and the like, claim the limelight.

The Velo Club has been brewing nicely for some years with David Harry first introducing new ways forward, and now the cudgel has been taken up by the incredibly dynamic Gary Wallbridge.

Cycling, believe me, is much more than a sport of modern-day stars, it has dozens of future stars in the making and that is down to the superb work of the likes of Harry and now Rob Smart in operating the Go Ride training scheme, while Wallbridge’s team make the most of what comes through the bursting junior ranks.

Of course, cycling is not the only success story and is only marginally ahead of table tennis in my estimation, but what both these sports demonstrate is an unequivocal and clear pathway from under 11s to seniors.

Other sports succeed but do not have all elements of their organisation pulling the right way.

SPORT OF THE YEAR SHORTLIST

Cycling
Table Tennis
Swimming
Athletics
Sailing