Anthony Foster, STAR Writer

Usain Bolt - file photos

Olympic champions Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Melaine Walker and Shelly-Ann Fraser head the list of nominees for the 2008 RJR Sports Foundation Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year.

Usain Bolt, winner of the 100m (9.69), 200m (19.30) and a member of the 4x100m (37.10) gold medal winning team at the Beijing Olympics, all in record times, heads the list of five male nominees for the February 13 awards ceremony, which is scheduled for The Courtleigh Auditorium.

Jerome Taylor, who took 24 wickets in six Test matches at an average of 29.79 and scored a century - 106 off 107-balls against New Zealand; Luton Shelton, scorer of seven goals for Jamaica in the World Cup qualifying and Asafa Powell, who anchored Jamaica to a world record 37.10 in the men's 4x100m relay at the Olympics, are also included in the men's category.

Captain nominated

West Indies captain Chris Gayle, who scored 451 runs with a top score of 197 against New Zealand in the just-concluded Test series, is the other male nominee.

The female nominees are headed by Melaine Walker, winner of the 400m hurdles gold in an Olympic and national record 52.64 seconds; Campbell-Brown, who repeated her Athens 200m success with a personal best 21.74, along with Fraser, who ran 10.78 - the second-fastest time by a Jamaican - to secure the country's first Olympic gold medal in the women's 100m event.

Shericka Williams, who ran a 49.69 personal best for silver in the women's 400m; Sherone Simpson, who shared the women's 100m silver with Kerron Stewart who later took bronze in the 200m, along with Stephanie Taylor, the Jamaican and West Indies women's cricketer, are also nominated.

Five people are also listed for the People's Choice Performance of the Year, an addition to the award's function.

Fraser's 10.78-second run; Taylor's 106 against New Zealand, Ricardo Fuller's goal against Mexico that gave the Reggae Boyz a 1-0 win in World Cup Qualifying; and Daemion Benjamin's goal for Boys' Town against Arnett Gardens have been shortlisted as the best performances of 2008.

Criteria

However, according to the criteria for this section: 1. The performance must be by a national of Jamaica. 2. The performance must be a specific or single event (that is not an accumulation of performances). 3. The performance must exhibit a high or special degree of technical and/or athletic difficulty. 4. The performance should not be in isolation, be sufficient to be considered for nomination as Sportsman or Sportswoman of the Year. 5. Because of the need for voting by the public, it is highly preferable that suitable video footage of the performance is available.

Quizzed about criteria four and the fact that Fraser and Taylor have been nominated for both sections, Chris Dehring, chairman of the RJR Sports Foundation, said: "One of the criteria the selection committee would have looked on was whether or not an individual performance, in and of itself, in isolation, would have been enough to catapult this person to potentially be Sportsman or Sportswoman of the Year, or even winning either of those awards."

He used Fraser as an example, saying the fact that Jamaica did not necessarily support her, made her performance special because of the circumstances.

"Also take in isolation, in this particular year where there were other gold-medal winners ... I wouldn't necessarily make Shelly-Ann a shoo-in or a strong candidate, or guarantee for nomination ...," he said.

"So all that would be taken into consideration," he explained.

The public can vote for their performance via text, details of which will be published in The Gleaner, the print media partner for the RJR Sports Foundation.

Jerome Taylor

Melaine Walker

Shelly-Ann Fraser