By Pim van Nes
In Nieuwe Luxor Theater of Rotterdam on Monday night, the city and region’s sport awards 2015 were the focus of an elegant soiree hosted by the City Municipality, Rotterdam Sportsupport, Rotterdam Topsport and regional RTV Rijnmond. This year’s winning sports were baseball, sailing and judo with Curacao Neptunus as best team, Rutger van Schaardenburg as best male sporter and Marhinde Verkerk as best female sporter. The prizes were handed to the winners by Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and Alderman Adriaan Visser.
Neptunus baseball came back from behind in both regular season and play-offs of this year’s Hoofdklasse competition. Their manager Evert-Jan ‘t Hoen was one of the nominated coaches and Dwayne Kemp was one of the nominated players. Before these top sporters, also best coach (Arno Havenga, World Cup finalist waterpolo), best talent, best handicapped sporters club and best revalidating coach received their awards from the same high authorities of City of Sports Rotterdam.
According to Rotterdam Topsport calendar for 2016, sports fans can look forward to many events in the city, including Six Days cyclism in January, World Tennis Tournament in February, Olympic qualification tournament for ladies soccer in March, Rotterdam Marathon in April and 20 other top events across the year.
Photo by Maya Toekoen = Neptunus players join Raily Legito on the Nieuwe Luxor podium, when Rotterdam sports alderman Adriaan Visser announced that Rotterdam Rijnmond Team Sport Award 2015 is for the Netherlands and European baseball champion club.