It was the night of nights for sporting achievements in the Esperance region on Saturday, when the annual Horizon Power Sports Star Awards were held at the Esperance Civic Centre.
Over 100 people attended the presentation dinner which honours sportsmen and sportswomen of all ages in all disciplines. The big winner this year was hockey.
Popular local hockey player and coach Gail Anderson, who has played at state and national level, took out the Veteran Sports Star of the Year Award and was also inducted into the Esperance Sporting Hall of Fame for her stellar forty-year sporting career. The big award of the night, Horizon Power Sports Star of the Year, also went to a hockey player, with Jacqui Tonkin of the Esperance Hockey Association taking the honours.
Special guest was World Surf League Big Wave Champion Shanan Worrall, one of Esperance’s own, who now lives in Margaret River. Shanan is the founder of www.sharkeyes.com.au, a company that is harnessing Nature’s own mimicry techniques to produce a range of ocean products designed to keep surfers and divers safer in the water.
Shanan was accompanied by surfing coach Joe Knight of Ocean International and abalone diver Craig Neilson, director of Seaduced Fins, an Esperance company that is producing a range of carbon fibre Shark Eyes diving fins.