Sport Auckland Awards Finalists Confirmed

Sport Auckland Awards Finalists Confirmed - World Champions & Winners Announced

The finalists for the 2007 Sport Auckland awards have been confirmed and once again there are many great achievers in the list ranging from world champions through to highly ranked individuals and national championship title holders.

The awards dinner will be held at the ASB lounge at Eden Park, Friday 9th November with a special entertainment show as well as recognition of some of Auckland's sporting hero's and heroines.

The quality of the finalists is high in all categories. The More FM sportsman of the year category finalists are six-time New Zealand Ironman champ Cameron Brown, world champ rower Mahe Drysdale and All Black, Blues and Auckland rugby player, Doug Howlett make up the.

In the Asics sportswoman of the year section ironman's Jo Lawn, Marina Erakovic and rugby's Anna Richards are the finalists. Lawn won the New Zealand Ironman for the fifth time and finished in a record time at the Hawaiian Ironman for the New Zealand woman.

Erakovic is still a teenager but managed to beat a former champ at the 2007 ASB Classic and nearly accounted for another one in the next round. She also won a US$50,000 ITF title in the past 12 months and has been ranked inside the world's top 150.

Richards has been an integral part of Auckland women's rugby team as well as the Black Ferns.

The unbeaten Auckland rugby team will battle it out with the Auckland City Football Club team who won the domestic competition for the third straight year as well as the Oceania club champs. World cup winning rowers Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles are also in the running for the South Auckland Motors team of the year.

The junior categories finalists have great records during the year with Sacha Jones(tennis), Anna Longo(soccer) and Ramoana Belmont(billard sports) all up for the top prize of Pernod Ricard junior sportswoman.

Jones was a quarterfinalist at the US Open juniors for the second year running and despite several injuries managed to gain a WTA senior ranking of around 400 in the world as well as make the semifinals of a US$25,000 ITF event in Spain amongst many other achievements as well.

Longo became the youngest ever member of the Football Ferns (aged 15-years and 136 days) playing a part in the team in the FIFA women's world cup in China last month and Belmont was a bronze medalist at the under-21 world snooker champs and came fourth at the world senior champs.

In the SPARC junior sportsman category there are four very even finalists with Kartsports, Ben Dallas who the Auckland and New Zealand events in his sport and numerous other top competitions. Jacob Mathews(soccer) who is still at secondary school (Mt Albert Grammar) but was part of the Central United Chatham Cup winning team as well as the New Zealand under-17 sdie in Korea. Henry Poor(Rowing) finished fourth in the junior world champs while Auckland Air New Zealand Cup player Winston Stanley(rugby) is also competing for the title.

Other categories to have winners announced on the night include the He Oranga Poutama Maori achievement award, NZ Community Trust coach of the year and Artcom Design & Print referee of the year

For the full list of finalists:

Tickets to the Sport Auckland Sporting Excellence Awards can be purchased from Sport Auckland.

ENDS

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