We're looking for your help in picking The Echo Women in Sport winners
Lorna Bateman, Harlequins hockey, Meg Ryan, Douglas Gymnastics, and Eimear Scally, Éire Óg and Cork footballer, were quarterly winners in The Echo Women in Sport awards in 2019, in association with The Cork Airport Hotel. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
WE'RE looking for your help in picking the latest winners of the prestigious Echo Women in Sport awards.
This is the 15th year of the popular scheme which shines the spotlight on the best of female sport in Cork city and county.
You can now submit your nominees for the prizes via our online form. It's open to all female athletes aged 16 and over, across all sports, and in July we'll be revealing the recipients of the awards for the first half of 2021.
Our judging panel will access all the online submissions before finalising the winners for this six-month period. There will also be third and fourth quarter winners and they'll vie for the overall award.
Rower Sanita Puspure was selected by our judges as The Echo Women in Sport Awards 2020 Sportswoman of the Year, having also collected the top prize in 2018.
The Ballincollig resident has consistently delivered for Ireland on the world stage and will be among Leeside's leading lights again this year, especially with the Olympics on the horizon.
Carmel Calnan, who committed a lifetime of service to Clonakilty ladies football club and was one of its founding members, was The Echo Women in Sport Awards 2020 Hall of Fame selection.
The most recent ceremony before Covid restrictions was held at the Cork Airport Hotel and was a memorable and colourful celebration of female sport in Cork, as was the case at each event since the first in early 2008.
Among the other women to the fore in 2020 were sprinter Phil Healy, dual county winner Fiona Keating, soccer maestro Denise O’Sullivan, and Saoirse Noonan, who played All-Ireland finals in ladies football and soccer.
The awards have been in operation since 2007, and former Echo journalists Alison Donnelly and Mary White were at the forefront of its early success.
The other previous overall winners were basketballer Jessica Scannell, GAA icons Briege Corkery, Rena Buckley, and Juliet Murphy, Olympians Derval O’Rourke, Olive Loughnane and Lizzie Lee, Paralympian Orla Barry, soccer star Denise O’Sullivan, and soccer international and ladies footballer Saoirse Noonan.
2007: Jessica Scannell
2008: Briege Corkery
2009: Olive Loughnane
2010: Derval O’Rourke
2011: Juliet Murphy
2012: Orla Barry
2013: Christina Desmond
2014: Denise O’Sullivan
2015: Lizzie Lee
2016: Rena Buckley
2017: Saoirse Noonan
2018: Sanita Puspure
2019: Christina Desmond
2020: Sanita Puspure
App?
