The accolades keep rolling in for the sailing members of Team GB from Sydney 2000 as they scooped a further three awards at the star studded BBC South Sports Awards 2000 at the De Vere Grand Harbour Hotel in Southampton yesterday evening (Sunday December 3).

Of the 15 categories, members of the successful Sydney sailing team won three and were presented with specially engraved Silver plates. The ‘Omega Watch Company Yachtsperson of the Year’ was awarded to Laser class Olympic Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie (from Lymington) while the ‘BBC Southern Counties Radio Sportswoman of the Year’ went to Europe class Olympic champion Shirley Robertson (from Cowes on the Isle of Wight).

This award adds to the two Shirley has already collected since the Olympics. In October, Shirley (who was raised in Menstrie near Stirling in Scotland) won the ‘People of Glasgow Sports Personality of the Year award’ and then the highest personal award in world sailing next to the Olympic Gold Medal, that of ‘ISAF/Sperry Female World Sailor of the Year’.

Fellow Olympic team members, Star class Silver Medallists Ian Walker (Hamble) and Mark Covell (Emsworth) and 49er Silver Medallists Ian Barker (Hamble) and Simon Hiscocks (Dorking) were both nominated for the ‘BBC Southampton Online Male Team of the Year’ at yesterday’s live ceremony.

49er helmsman Ian Barker, who was born in Cardiff, won the ‘Contribution to Welsh Sports’ award shortly after his return from Sydney.

In recognition for his pivotal role in managing the most successful British sailing team ever fielded at an Olympic Games, Team GB Sailing Manager (now RYA Racing Manager) John Derbyshire (from Emsworth) was presented with the ‘BBC Radio Solent Manager of the Year’ award. The sailing members of Team GB left Sydney not only as the most successful British sport with three Olympic Gold and two Olympic Silver Medals but also as the top Olympic sailing nation in the world.

As well as the possibility that sailing’s achievements in Sydney will be recognised at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards later this month, the sailing medallists have also been shortlisted for the BT YJA ‘Yachtsman of the Year’ award which will be presented at the British Nautical Awards ceremony, the Oscars of boating, at the London Hilton Hotel on January 5, 2001. Individual sailors and the seven medallists collectively have also been nominated for the ‘WS Atkins ‘Inshore Yachtsman of the Year’.