Fantastic five up for Female Athlete of the Year

While the number of female athletes on our list isn’t numerous as the males from last week, the quality is more than there. The ‘fantastic five’ set several national records, won medals at the CAC Games, had podium finishes in Spanish, U.S. and Caribbean championships.

Don Burgess takes a look at the five finalists for the Bermuda Sun’s Female Sports Personality of the Year and what they accomplished in 2010.

Kiera Aitken

Swimming

It was a year of podium finishes for Aitken. She won a silver medal at the Spanish Nationals in the 50 metres backstroke and also broke her 200 metres record at the same event.

At the Caribbean Island Swimming Championships, Aitken won four gold including the 50m backstroke, 200m backstroke and the 100m freestyle. Her time of 29.61 in the backstroke qualified her for the World Championship and set a new CISC record. She also won a bronze at that meet in the 4 x 100 freestyle, helping set a new national record. She also represented Bermuda at the CAC and Commonwealth Games.

Flora Duffy

Triathlon/cycling

Duffy won a silver medal in triathlon at the CAC Games. She spent much of the year cycling for the University of Colorado. The multi-talented athlete was selected to be part of the Fiber One Collegiate All-stars, which rode in the Nature Valley Grand Prix. 

Duffy also placed eighth at the ITU World Junior Triathlon championships. She was also fourth in the U.S. collegiate time trial and sixth in the U.S. collegiate road race national championships.

She also won the Caribbean Championships in both the time trial and the road race.

Arantxa King

Athletics

It’s been a great year for the triple and long jumper.

First King established a new Bermuda record in the triple jump when she unleashed a 12.93 metres leap in the Pac-10 Championships for Stanford University.

At that meet, she also finished second in the long jump by going 6.34 metres.

Shianne Smith

Hepathlon

Smith used several personal bests as she established a new Bermuda record in the Heptathlon. She scored 5,127 points at the Claremont Classic Meet competing for Cal State University. She dominated the event by capturing first in six of the seven events.

Jenaya Wade-Fray

Basketball

It was a great year for Wade-Fray. She made Great Britain’s Olympic team which will compete in the 2011 Eurobasket Championship qualifiers. She helped her college team, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to a Southern Conference title with a 21-8 record. She also scored her 1,000th point for the university and finished with over 1,200.  She also made the league’s All-conference team.