Eddie Jones has been named coach of the year at the 2016 Pride of Sport Awards.
The former Japan coach has transformed England’s rugby union side after their shambolic World Cup campaign.
England went unbeaten in 2016, a year that included four wins against Australia and a Six Nations triumph.
“Firstly I’m a bit embarrassed to get this given what the rest of the contestants have done,” said Jones.
“We’ve got good players – this award belongs to the players and the staff, I’m so proud of them. It’s a bit of fun (beating the Aussies four times).”
(Photo: TIM ANDERSON)
Dame Kelly Holmes was presented with a lifetime achievement award for her work on and off the track.
After retiring in 2005, she transferred the dedication and fierce work ethic that made her a double Olympic champion to setting up and running the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, which works with disadvantaged young people throughout the UK.
The team award went to Team GB and Paralympics GB for their record-breaking medal haul.
“The Pride of Sport Awards recognise those who have made an outstanding contribution to sport and show how important sport is to our communities and daily life,” said Michelle Linaker, Head of National Events Pride of Sport.
“There have been so many amazing stories and I’d like to pay tribute to all our nominees.
“Our winners this year are so inspiring and it’s our honour to be able to pay tribute to them through the awards.”
(Photo: REX/Shutterstock)
The 2016 winners
Coach of the Year: Eddie Jones
The former Australia coach has breathed fresh life into English rugby since taking over the national side following a disastrous World Cup campaign on home soil.
The personnel may have remained but the results have been dramatically different, with England celebrating a first Grand Slam for 13 years and then, perhaps more impressively, a historic 3-0 series win against Australia Down Under – the first time the hosts had been whitewashed on home soil.
(Photo: PA)
Team of the Year: Team GB and Paralympics GB
They inspired the whole nation with the greatest combined team performance in British sporting history. After the record-breaking success of the London Games, not even the most ardent supporter dared to believe our Olympians and Paralympians could match the achievements of 2012.
But in the heat of Rio, Team GB more than matched them; they surpassed them in a 16-day celebration of sport that saw records smashed, new heroes created and new standards set.
Inspirational Performance of the Year: Dame Sarah Storey
It took something extra-special to stand out in a gold-strewn 2016, but Dame Sarah Storey’s achievement of becoming our most decorated Paralympian was truly inspirational.
Her victory in the C5 3000m final in Rio saw her claim an astonishing 12th Paralympic gold – surpassing the mark set by Tanni Grey-Thompson and Lee Pearson.
Young Sportsperson of the Year: Faith Price
Britain’s young female sprinters have captured the imagination in recent years – and Faith Price of Croydon is the latest in a long-line of 100m specialists who look set to hit the big time.
As an 11-year-old the sprinter broke Donna Fraser’s 35-year-old records at the Croydon schools championships in 2015 and has gone even faster since in 2016. Leaving the competition standing in South London, Price is currently ranked number one at national level for the 100m, 150m and 300m. She was also voted as one of the Croydon Guardian’s Young Persons of the Year at the tail end of last year.
TSB Community Partnership Award: Flamingo Chicks
Flamingo Chicks is a unique club in Bristol for disabled children to experience the magic of dance while also providing support for their parents and carers – it’s also a local community partnership that has revolutionised the lives of all those involved with it.
Since it’s formation, the group has broken new ground, and now has over 300 active volunteers helping over 1,500 children each year.
Grassroots Team of the Year: Pilgrim Flyers
The Pilgrim Flyers are young mountain bikers head to woodland in and around Plymouth to hone their skills in the great outdoors. In winter, though, it’s a completely different story, with a multi-storey car park in the middle of the city. Their ambition is to provide an outlet for kids to continue to get on their bikes regardless of the weather — and it’s working.
Sporting Charity Challenge Award: Alex Smith
In 2011, Alex learned that his son, Harrison, was suffering from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a debilitating and life-shortening condition. Five years later, and this June, Alex found himself carrying his son and contemplating the sort of physical endurance test that would make most people shiver with fear.
Alex completed an ultra-triathlon – a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and a 42.2km run – pulling and pushing Harrison around the course in a specially adapted kit. He has now successfully raised £50,000 for Harrison’s fund, a charity he himself set-up to help find a cure for the disease. In total, since 2011, the family has raised over £1.5m.
Local Hero Award: Denham Elvin
After being made homeless at the age of 17, the 29 year old has not only turned his life around but is now using cycling as a means of reaching out to the community while turning run-down areas into cycling havens.
The Southampton-born cycling enthusiast has succeeded in using cycling as a means for transforming estates riddled with drug-use and gang crime into safe havens for cyclists of all ages on the south coast.
Disability Sports Award: Martyn Ashton
Martyn, a former daredevil downhill mountain biking star, spent five months in hospital in 2013 after falling off his bike three metres up while performing a stunt. He was paralysed from the waist down and was told he would never ride again. Then, in June 2016, he released a video of himself careering down one of the world’s hardest downhill courses on a specially-designed mountain bike.
The damage to his spine left him unable to walk or cycle but Martyn has never been one to take his diagnosis lying down.
Young Achiever Award: AbdulKareem Musa Adam
As a young boy growing up in Sudan, AbdulKareem always had a passion for animals, but his life turned upside down when he returned from a horse ride one morning to find his village decimated and almost all of his family dead.
What has followed is one of the great untold sporting stories of 2016. He set off to find help and safety but ended up in Libya, finding himself kidnapped into Colonel Gaddafi’s child army. He was then rescued by a British aid worker and taken to Swindon where he was put in the care of the local authority.
Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, one of the few things AbdulKareem was able to articulate was his love of horses, and so enrolled with the Greatwood Charity, which uses equine therapy to help kids that have fallen out of mainstream school. Some 18 months later, AbdulKareem has set about achieving his ambition of being a jockey and working with horses full-time.
He has now won a place at the Northern Racing College in Doncaster and begins a 12-week course that will qualify him to work in a stables this month.
Young Achiever Award: Ethan Evans
Talented swimmer Ethan’s dreams of a career in the pool were ended by illness, but he still uses his passion for swimming to raise money for others. Ethan, 14, had already bounced back from being hospitalised with sepsis as a baby and then being the victim of a hit-and-run accident on his way home from school at the age of eight. He suffered smashed kneecaps and a broken jaw, and was devastated to be told he couldn’t play football again.
His physiotherapist recommended swimming to aid his rehabilitation, and astonishingly he went on to break age group records, win county championships in Lancashire and swim at a national level. He also used his talent to raise tens of thousands of pounds for charity with a series of grueling sponsored swims.
But his dreams of one day swimming at the Olympics were shattered just over a year ago when he was diagnosed with a rare and serious condition, sporadic hemiplegic migraine, which mimics the effects of a stroke and brain tumour. He can no longer swim at the highest level but continues to raise funds with his swimming.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Dame Kelly Holmes
Holmes will always be remembered for two of the most stunning triumphs in athletics history in a sun-baked Greek summer back in 2004.
What she she has achieved since, though, working tirelessly to transform the life chances of disadvantaged young people through the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, is every bit as inspirational.
After retiring in 2005, she transferred the dedication and fierce work ethic that made her a double Olympic champion to setting up and running the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, which works with disadvantaged young people throughout the UK.
The Trust has now worked with more than 300,000 young people, and 70% of people on its flagship Get on Track programme were in employment, education or training by the time they completed it.
