DOUBLE sprint world record holder Usain Bolt, 100m World champion Shelly Ann-Fraser and MVP head coach Stephen Francis were the winners at Friday night’s inaugural Scotia/Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) Golden Cleats Awards and fundraiser at Jamaica House.

Bolt, who dominated the Berlin World Championships by winning gold in the 100m and 200m in world record times of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds, respectively, as well as sharing in the Jamaica’s 4×100 metres victory easily retained the male trophy.

However, the seven-member selection panel headed by Bernard Panton deliberated long and hard before giving Fraser the nod over last year’s winner, 400m hurdler Melaine Walker and sprint hurdler Brigitte Foster-Hylton.

Fraser won the 100m in a national record of 10.73secs, Walker took the 400m hurdles in a championship record of 52.42secs, while Foster-Hylton won Jamaica’s first gold in the 100m hurdles with 12.51secs.

All three athletes secured individual gold medals at Berlin, but Fraser collected a second gold in the 4x100m relays.

“It was extremely difficult with three candidates,” Panton told the Sunday Observer after the three-hour long function.

“But we really thought long and hard and debated… in the end we thought that the two gold medals that Shelly-Ann won in the major meet of the year and the time that she won it in gave her the edge over the other two,” he added.

The other members of the panel were Olympians Don Quarrie, Deon Hemmings-McCatty and Juliet Cutbert, as well as journalists Hubert Lawrence, Earl Bailey and Anthony Foster.

Francis, who conditioned Fraser, Walker, Foster-Hylton, Asafa Powell, Shericka Williams and Michael Frater to medals in Berlin, received the award ahead last year’s winner Glen Mills, who again coached Bolt to three gold medals.

“Last year was the first year that Usain was setting all these senior world records and we thought the improvements he made under Glen Mills was sufficient to give him the edge. But this year, there were so many athletes in different disciplines coached by Stephen Francis, that we were convinced that he deserved it for 2009,” Panton explained. Francis was not on hand to collect his trophy.

Meanwhile Anya Schnoor, senior vice-president of Scotia Jamaica, was happy with the function and hoped they reached the target of $1.5 million for helping the JAAA to upgrade equipment such as hurdles, photo-finish equipment, display indicators, lap counters and special computer software for the photo-finish camera.