2018 Sports Awards Finalist and Hall of Fame Inductees

World swimming’s foremost women’s freestyle sprinter Cate Campbell is The CourierMail Channel 7 Queensland Sport Star of the Year Award winner for 2018, announced at tonight’s 24th Annual Queensland Sport Awards / Hall of Fame Presentation in Brisbane.

The black tie audience of 720 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre heard the announcement of Campbell’s win at the end of a night which saw 11 Awards presented for Queensland’s top on and off field sporting performances in the period October, 2017 to September, 2018 plus three further Service to Sport Awards presented for outstanding service.

Campbell’s total of eight gold medals at the Pan Pacific Championship in Tokyo and the Commonwealth Games and her 100m final relay leg in the Australian world record 4 x 100 m freestyle gold medal win at the Games won her the second such award in three years.

In the now familiar Queensland Sport Hall of Fame segment of the event, rugby league Immortal and Queensland Great Mal Meninga was elevated to Legend status while Olympian dual gold medal winner in cyclist Anna Meares and AFL triple premiership Brisbane Lions star forward Jonathan Brown were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Also inducted into the Hall of Fame were along with deceased sporting pioneers in 1920’s top Australasian women’s tennis player Margaret Molesworth and turn of the century multi-sport administrator Tom Welsby who played a role in the struggle between Aussie Rules and rugby union  for local footy supremacy in the 1880s and beyond and also was involved in the establishment of the forerunner to the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron as well as serving briefly in the Queensland Parliament. 

Female swimmers scooped the pool of awards on offer with the all Queensland Australian freestyle team of Cate and Bronte Campbell, Emma McKeon and Shayna Jack that broke the world record in the women’s 4 x 100m relay at the Commonwealth Games in April winning the XXXX Sport Team of the Year and young star on the rise in 17 year old Ariarne Titmus The Courier-Mail Channel 7 Junior Sport Star category.

Other award winners were Sunshine Coast Lightning back to back Suncorp Super Netball Championship coach Noeline Taurua who took out the LGAQ sponsored Queensland Sport Coach of the Year.

Gymnastics Queensland CEO Kym Dowdell the Gallagher sponsored Queensland Sport Administrator of the Year, 2018 World Cup and Commonwealth Games hockey umpire Aleisha Neumann the Konica Minolta sponsored Queensland Sport Officiator of the Year and Netball Queensland President Jane Seawright the Queensland Sport Volunteer of the Year sponsored by Brisbane City Council.

The McDonald’s sponsored Queensland Sport Athlete with a Disability award went to undefeated world para-canoeing champion Curtis McGrath while the Queensland Government sponsored Junior Team of the Year Award went to the Gold Coast Little League baseball team for their undefeated national title win that saw them off to the USA to represent Australia at the World Little League event.

The QAS Peter Lacey Award for Sporting Excellence went to para snowboarding‘s Simon Patmore for his performance at the Winter Olympics in North Korea while the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games was the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre sponsored Sport Event of the Year. The Queensland Government sponsored Service to Sport Awards were awarded to swimming’s Peter Crane, gymnastics Sherele Graham and AFL’s Alan Mackenzie for their decades of contribution to their sports.