Sandoval gets Wairarapa Times-Age title

Wairarapa sports awards supreme champion Jorge Sandoval lays down the law at the New Zealand Cycle Classic. PHOTO/ANDREW BONALLACK

CYCLING guru Jorge Sandoval was the big winner at the 2016 Wairarapa Times-Age sports awards, the winners of which were announced before a capacity crowd at Copthorne Hotel and Resort Solway Park last night.

Sandoval won the supreme champion award after earlier being named Administrator of the Year with his organisation of the New Zealand Cycle Classic in which competitors race over Wairarapa roads for five days being a major catalyst for his success. However, it is by no means the only major road cycling event with which he has been associated in the 30-plus years he has been involved in the administrative side of the sport in this country.

And it's not the first time either that Sandoval has been honoured for his services to cycling. In 2007 he became an Honorary Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit and is a three-time winner of the Wellington Administrator of the Year trophy.

He also was the subject of a biography, Surviving Pinochet, which covered the times when he was imprisoned and tortured in his Chilean homeland for his "crimes" against Pinochet's dictatorship.

Named Senior Sports Personality of the Year was athlete Alison Andrews-Paul who has been named in the New Zealand team for the world junior track and field championships in Poland in July.

She will compete in the 800m there. Andrews-Paul is a member of the Athletics Wairarapa club and it was a huge night for them as they won the Club of the Year award and John Quinn was named Coach of the Year.

Other category winners were Vinnie Capes (Youth Sports Personality), Siena Cockburn (Junior Sports Personality), Keelan Ward (Disabled Sports Personality), Farry McLeod (Volunteer of the Year), Dalefield men's hockey team (Senior Team of the Year), Wairarapa College first XI boys hockey team (Youth Team of the Year), Masterton Intermediate first XV rugby team (Junior Team of the Year), Rathkeale College (Secondary School of the Year), St Mary's School, Carterton (Primary and Intermediate School of the Year).

Another highlight of last night's function was the naming of the latest recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award which went to Featherston athletics and rugby identity Ron Hughes, who has had close to 50 years involvement in both sports and who has been honoured at the Wairarapa sports awards on previous occasions. Guest speaker was New Zealand and Breakers basketball legend Paul Henare.