THE AWARD FOR BEST ATHLETE GOES TO ...

SILLY season is upon us again and it is time for my customary moan about the rewards functions whether here or abroad.

Maybe it is out of bitterness that I love a good rant about what I consider a good waste of money.

I have received the odd award but the ‘most improved under-11 rugby player of the year’ is hardly an accolade that I can put on my CV.

But it was nevertheless a good season for a young me with my dad treating me to some celebratory Spur ribs.

Full disclosure, I have declined to be nominated for one of the local award evenings while I have entered for another where my work will hopefully be judged by a competent panel.

Everyone loves a good award when they are on the receiving end of a prize and a handshake from a dignitary, whether it is the school principal or the Minister of Sport.

But more often than not a whole host of people have good reason to question the merits of such awards.

The nominees for the 2018 SA Sports Awards were announced, and as always there were glaring omissions.

I have hoped for a swift demise of the annual event since Fikile Mbalula relaunched it as sports minister.

When athletes get recognised by international bodies, but they are overlooked at home, you know the awards are not based on merit but some other criteria.

But the cockeyed process that is used to dish out accolades is not reserved for the SA Sports Awards.

South African track phenom Caster Semenya has been missing out on international prizes since she burst onto the international scene at the 2009 Berlin World Championships.

She received her third consecutive nomination for IAAF Female Athleteof-the-Year award last month.

Semenya has not made the final short-list in the previous two years of the annual awards and one suspects she has made the initial list merely out of courtesy.

The two-time Olympic champion echoes my aversion for annual awards evenings with the South African placing a higher premium on her actual performances.

“I am not interested in awards, I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve,” Semenya said.

“You know, awards are just accolades, they have no meaning because they are just awards and someone can just come and take it.

“But when it comes to performance, no-one can take it away from you.

“When it comes to awards, they come and go and you never know when it comes to votes and the council whether they will vote in your favour.”

The point is that awards should not be the measure of an athlete’s or anybody else’s worth.