Westley wins

For Waipukurau's Gough family it's a case of another one of of those celebration parties without the main man.
Rod and Wendy's Gough's Olympic Games cyclist son Westley won Hawke's Bay's 2008 Sportsperson of the Year award last night. Just like in 2006 when he won the junior section of the Gen-I awards his parents Rod and Wendy had to toss for the acceptance speech duties as Westley is in Poland at the world track championships where he was scheduled to race at 2am today.
Westley's winning of the premier award at last night's Pettigrew-Green Arena-hosted function attended by 350 people followed his winning of the senior section.
Speaking to Hawke's Bay Today before the function began Mr Gough said their son had emailed a short thankyou message home to be read out if he was successful.
"If he is we might invite Ivan to go up on Westley's behalf," Mr Gough said referring to Hawke's Bay Ramblers Cycling Club chairman Ivan Aplin.
"We expect Westley to be among the favourites but we haven't studied the finalists too much," he added.
In addition to last night's two awards and the 2006 junior award Westley was also judged the 2005 Hawke's Bay Secondary Schools Sportsperson of the Year. It's almost a case of natural progression for the Beijing Olympics bronze medallist.
He is the first Olympic Games medallist to win the Hawke's Bay award since rower Keith Trask won it in 1980. However in Trask's case he won the award before he won his Olympic medal in 1984.
While Westley's Olympic Games bronze medal with the Kiwi men's pursuit team was the highlight of his 2008 year there were several others. He helped the Kiwis finish fourth at the world track championships and second at World Cup events in Sydney and Beijing.
Individual highlights included the national points race title, the national Madison title and second placings in both the national under-23 time trial and individual pursuit events.
Six 2007 award winners, including four from rugby, retained their awards. They were international referee Kelvin Deaker who retired last year, Kelt Capital Magpies coach Peter Russell, the Magpies team, Magpies winger Zac Guildford who retained his junior award, the Hawke's Bay Multisport Club in the operations section and the Hawke's Bay Rowing Club in the club performance section.
In the Hawke's Bay Multisport Club's case it was the third consecutive time they had won the award.