DANIEL LEE hopes there is ‘more to come in the future’ after winning the 2022 Sporting Performance of the Year at the Jersey Sport Awards.
The gymnast was delighted to have won the accolade on the back of his performances at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in the summer, when he finish sixth in the all-round final and seventh in the rings final.
Lee has been training with the Great Britain team, which he described as ‘an incredible experience’, and is looking to push hard in domestic competitions next year, with one eye already on the next Games in Victoria in four years’ time.
Meanwhile, Hannah Silcock reflected on her Games experience which won her the U21 Sporting Performance of the Year.
The 15-year-old table tennis prodigy made it to the last 32 in the women’s singles and was at one stage tied at 2-2 before going out to England number one Tin-Tin Ho.
Ho was visibly rattled during the contest but once the heat of the battle had simmered away Silcock said Ho was complimentary to her.
‘The next day she came up to me and said I did very well, which meant a lot because when I was younger she was my inspiration,’ said Silcock.
A lifetime achievement award was presented to Sally Minty-Gravett after she completed her sixth cross-Channel swim in as many decades, raising £23,500 for local charities in the process.
Minty-Gravett dedicated her award to her late-husband Charlie and the 64-year-old joked that she would consider another comeback in ten years’ time on the provision that she would get paid to do it.
Minty-Gravett first completed the swim as an 18-year-old in 1975 but said that this one, which she completed in 15-and-a-half hours, was one of the easiest.
‘It was just meant to be. The stars were aligned this year. It was the perfect day and the perfect swim and I could never replicate that,’ she said.
‘[Charlie] was with me every stroke of the way. I couldn’t have done without him being there in my soul.’
Friday night’s event also featured two of Jersey’s greatest and most successful athletes, Matt Banahan and Serena Kerston, inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Both started their professional careers in Bath and Kerston recalled Banahan looking out for her when she first moved to the city and would buy her a soft drink and a snack now and again.
Netballer Kerston would go on to win a gold medal at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018, while rugby union star Banahan went on to win 16 caps as a wing for England as well as becoming one of the all-time leading try scorers in the Premiership.
Both are now involved in developing the netball and rugby stars of the future, with a focus on giving back to the sports that served them so well.
Kerston, who moved back to Jersey earlier this year, said: ‘My job is to help grow the game in any way that I can,’ pointing out that there are plans in the pipeline to found a Superleague franchise at some stage in the future.
‘There is obviously the big performance point and my expertise is in performance … but I am really passionate about working in the community.
‘First we need girls to join the sport at a young age. We then need to get a franchise here and build a pathway system to allow women to be the best they can be in a female sport.’
Banahan spoke of how exposing himself to multiple sports growing up on the Island helped him achieve success in rugby.
‘I didn’t play rugby until I was 17. I wanted to be a hockey player,’ admitted the former Les Quennevais student, who turned professional just six months later.
‘The benefit of living in Jersey is having all the sports available. That’s the strength of the Island … and getting a child to play multiple sports from two years old to 14 is massive. You can’t pigeon-hole these kids because bodies change, life changes and you might be really good at something else. I was lucky to have parents pushing me in multiple directions and shuttling across the Island four or five days a week.
‘Luckily financially I paid them back,’ he joked.
