A night of celebrating Tasmanian sporting excellence also saw cyclist Amy Cure and sailor Matt Bugg become the 143rd and 144th inductees into the Tasmanian Sporting Hall of Fame.
Both are former world champions in their field and previous athlete of the year winners, Cure having claimed the title in 2009 and 2015 and Bugg in 2016.
Burnie-born Cure, 31, is a three-time world champion, four-time junior world champion, two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist and dual Olympian, who retired from international cycling in 2020.
She compiled an amazing record on the international stage and became the first track cyclist to win a medal in six different world championship events - points race, scratch race, madison, omnium, individual pursuit and team pursuit.
After claiming her first junior world title in the 2009 scratch race, Cure defended her crown a year later when she also added the team pursuit and individual pursuit in which she broke the world record.
After two senior world championship silver medals in 2013, Cure won her first elite world title in the 2014 points race before adding scratch race silver and individual pursuit bronze at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Team pursuit gold and a world record followed at the 2015 world championship before Cure was part of the Aussie team pursuit line-up which finished fifth at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Three more medals followed at the 2017 world championships before victories in team pursuit and scratch race at the home 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. She completed her world championship medal haul in 2019 by teaming up with fellow Tasmanian Georgia Baker to claim silver in the Madison before both were part of a gold medal-winning team pursuit.
Bugg, 43, established a stunning record of 13 open Australian 2.4 national championships and was ranked in the top three in the world for a large portion of his career.
Hailing from Hobart’s Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania he hit his peak between 2015 and 2018 when he finished on the podium in all five major benchmark events.
A bronze medal at the 2015 world championships in Melbourne was replicated the following year in the Dutch town of Medemblik. Silver at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro was repeated at the following year’s world championships in Kiel, Germany, before Bugg won that elusive gold medal by taking out the 2018 world title in Sheboygan, USA.
A two-time Paralympian, Bugg retired from international competition in 2018.
