Tom Drane is a promising Young Motorbike Rider, who at the age of only 9 years of age won the 2015 Forbes Sportsperson of the Award on Saturday night. Although there have been many juniors, including his own father Matt in 2000 & 2001, Tom is the youngest to have won this award. Tom’s natural talent for the sport, enabling him to win State and National Titles in 2015, obviously impressed the independent judging panel who selected him from a huge pool of worthy nominees.

Juniors dominated the awards on Saturday night with Aurella White – Umpire/Referee/Official of the Year, Ellie Flick – All Rounder, Brooke Kelly – Phillip Adams Encouragement and Darcy Leadbitter – Runner-Up. Junior Sportsperson of the Year was won by Fyn Harrison with Darcie Morrison taking out the Senior category.

Harness Racing Duo Jason Gaffney & Murray Sullivan Jnr also featured in the
presentation with Jason Coach/Trainer of the Year and Murray receiving the Presidents Award. Kristen’s Dance Studio Open Dance Troupe took out the Team honours and the Forbes Magpies Rugby League Committee claimed the Administration Award. A humbled and shocked Sue Uphill was a popular winner of the Terry Wade Memorial Award for her many years of volunteer
service in a variety of organisations within the community.

Australian Rugby 7’s player, Tom Cusack was very impressed with the achievements of all of the nominees but in particular the winners. Tom enlightened the crowd, in excess of 120, of the pathways he followed to
get to the position he is in today and of his plans for the future.

The Forbes Sportsperson of the Year Association will be holding their Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 22nd March at the Forbes Sport & Recreation Club commencing at 6.30pm and invite interested people to come along and join the committee so that they can continue to recognise and reward the our local sporting heroes. Nomination for the 2016 Awards are now open and you are encouraged to submit nominations at any time throughout the year.

Sam Baas, Matt Styles, Jarrod Reid and Luke Hutchings were on the money on
Sunday when they swam 0.52 seconds outside their nominated times for the 4 x 50m Relay to secure the 2016 Pup Cup. In its 23rd year, the Pup Cup is the last major event on the calendar for Forbes Diggers Swimming Club, and still attracts its regular crowd on participants and supporters.

Swimmers aged from as young as 5 years to as experienced as 80 years took to the water to swim closest to their nominated times for the 30m & 50 m Handicapped events and then nominated team of four for the Pup Cup Relay. Fourteen teams contested the Pup Cup and the winners were extremely pleased with their results.

Newcomer, Lauren Neilsen won the 30m Junior Handicap with Liam Borger securing the 50m. Senior swimmers Matt Styles and Peter Thompson claimed the 30m & 50m handicap respectively.

Australian Rugby 7’s player, Tom Cusack who was guest speaker for the Forbes
Sportsperson of the Year Awards, joined in the friendly competition and was on hand to present the 30 & 50m winners with their prizes.

Forbes Triathlon committee member Nick Field has credited the athletes on display at last Sunday’s triathlon, saying their athleticism made for a great spectacle.

A record 150 competitors raced around Lake Forbes during the event, across the three divisions of Olympic, Sprint, Enticer, and Minors. The Olympic division was the main part of the event, and male athlete Nicholas North
took it out in the men’s division.

He ran across the finish line a clear winner by seven minutes, with an overall time of two hours and 36 seconds. He was able to win, individually, the swimming, and came a photo finish second in the cycling, but was beaten in the running by an inspired Robert Woolley, who ran the 10km in just 33 minutes.

Field said North was a very strong athlete in all three disciplines, but it was his 1500m swim in just 19 minutes that got him his win. “He got out to a very, very early lead in the swim and lead all the way. He could have been two to three hundred metres in front at the end of the first leg,” he said.

“He was two minutes ahead. It was a very impressive swim leg for him. But also on the bike, he was second, and second in the run. He’s an outstanding athlete.”

With just a couple of minutes separating most athletes in their finishing times, Field said the standard of racing was second to none. “For some of the locals learning the sport, they were in awe of some of the calibre of the athletes,” he said.

Jessica Richards took out the senior women’s division, finishing at two hours and 16 minutes, including an amazing 40km cycle in one hour and three minutes- beating most of the men. “She beat some of the top blokes on the bike, averaging about 36km/h. It’s amazing,” Field said. Field also thanked all the volunteers on the day, for which the event could not happen without.

The Forbes Sportsperson of the Year Association (SOYA) are delighted with the quality of the nominations they have received for the 2015 Awards with the Annual Presentation Dinner to be held on Saturday 27th February at the Forbes Sport & Recreation Club commencing at 6.30pm.

The Forbes SOYA is a small yet hard working committee dedicated to recognising and celebrating the accomplishments of our local sports men and women as well as administrators and officials. Sport is an important part of life and the awards are an opportunity to pay tribute to the athletes
who excel in their chosen sport and thank and show appreciation to the many volunteers who give their time to ensure that children and adults of all ages have access to some of the best sporting facilities and competitions in New South Wales.

The awards being contested include the Junior and Senior Sportsperson, All
Rounder, Coach/Trainer, Referee/Umpire/Official, Administrator, Team and of course the Forbes Sportsperson and Runner Up for 2015. The overall winner of the Central West Credit Union Monthly Achievers Award will also be announced on the night along with the President’s Award, Phillip Adams Encouragement Award, Merit Awards, School & Special Sports Awards.

The calibre of the nominations received for all the awards was of a very high standard making the job of the independent judging panel extremely difficult.

The SOYA Awards would not be possible without the generous support of our local businesses, allowing Forbes to be one of the last country towns in New South Wales who host a separate sporting awards ceremony. Congratulations to all nominees and the SOYA committee look forward to seeing you, your families and the nominated sporting organisations join us when the 2015
winners are announced.

Forbes Triathlon committee members Nick Field and Nick Turner say online registrations have been double that of this time last year, in the lead up to this Sunday’s event.

Limited registrations may be taken on the day if capacity is not reached before then, but Field said it looks likely this year’s triathlon, the second to be held in Forbes, will be the biggest yet. The race will include swimming, cycling and running, but different distances have been included in this year’s event.

There will be Olympic, sprint and enticer distances, with Olympic being the professional standard distance, while sprint and enticer distances will be much shorter. The Olympic distances for swimming, cycling and running will be 1500 metres, two laps of 20km, and two laps of 5km respectively.

There will also be a division for children under 10 years of age with much shorter distances. Each event will start and finish at Lake Forbes on Bedgerabong Road. Turner said having three different race lengths for each discipline was good for enticing the whole community to get involved.

“Every event has different lengths, but we’re just trying to cater for everybody,” he said. “The Olympic distances seem to have attracted a crew from afar, and we’ve got some really good athletes from Bathurst,
Orange and Dubbo that have already registered online.” “The shorter ones are about trying to get a fit for the local people to get them involved, and hopefully the distances aren’t too strenuous for them.”

Turner said while the flat terrain in Forbes made it an attractive event for professional athletes to break personal best results, the event was more for locals to get a feel for how triathlons work. “What we want to do is provide an opportunity for people in the area to do a triathlon and see how it all evolves.

If it keeps growing like the way it is, maybe we can do something larger down the track and have a real marquee event,” he said. Turner expected there to be a great spectacle for spectators on Sunday as well, with athletes such as last year’s women’s winner Caroline Wolfson from Orange, Tyse Hurst from Dubbo and Nick North from Bathurst set to race.

“A lot of good athletes have elected to come here this weekend instead of Huskisson [large South Coast triathlon], so word has obviously got around that this was a well-run event last year,” he said. Spectating will be free of charge, and cyclists are being asked to be mindful there will still be other traffic on Bedgereabong Road.