COMMONWEALTH Games champion Kaliese Spencer and the men’s 4x200m team that set a world best at the IAAF World Relay Championships in the Bahamas in May were the only Jamaican winners in the first Caribbean Sports Journalists’ Association (CASJA) annual awards.

Spencer, the 400m hurdles champion at the Commonwealth Games, as well as the IAAF Diamond Trophy winner, was named the Top Sportswoman, polling five of the six votes by a six-member panel comprised of Olympians Tonique Williams and Ato Boldon, former World Cup footballer Shaka Hislop and three track and field journalists from around the region.

Yarisley Silva of Cuba, the pole vault gold medallist from the World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland, ended second in the female vote.

Grenada’s Commonwealth Games 400m champion Kirani James won the Top Sportsman award by getting three of six votes, edging Jamaican World Boxing Association (WBA) Super World featherweight boxer champion Nicholas ‘Axeman’ Walters (two votes) and six-time Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt of Jamaica for the top award.

The Jamaican men’s 4x200m team of Nickel Ashmeade, Warren Weir, Jermaine Brown and Yohan Blake which set a new World best of 1:18.63 minutes won the award for Team of the Year.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Princesses, who are one win away from qualifying for next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada was named the Female Team of the Year.

Despite winning gold in the 400m hurdles at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, Oregon, and gold in a World Youth best time in the 110m hurdles at the Youth Olympics in China, Jamaica’s Jaheel Hyde was named runner-up in the male Rising Star category behind Guadeloupe’s Wilhem Belocian, who set a World Junior best 12.99 seconds to win the World Junior Championships 110m hurdles.

Commonwealth Games 400m champion Stephenie-Ann McPherson was also runner-up in the female section to Barbados’ jumper Akela Jones.