Ben Sandilands amongst West Fife winners at Scottish Athletics awards

Paralympic champion Ben Sandilands, his coach, Steve Doig, and Francis Smith, were all winners at the scottishathletics and jogscotland 4J Studios Annual Awards on Saturday.

Held in Glasgow, the event honoured athletes, coaches, clubs and volunteers for their success and commitment throughout the past year.

Fife AC star Ben, 21, was shortlisted for Para Athlete of the Year after his stunning success at the Paralympic Games, and was jointly presented the award with Samantha Kinghorn.

The talented T20 1500 metres runner, who last year won 2023 Para Athletics World Championships gold, stormed to victory on his Games debut in Paris, whilst also setting a new world record time of three minutes and 45.50 seconds.

That achievement saw him put forward as one of three nominees for Para Athlete of the Year - the other being Melanie Woods - and he and wheelchair racer Kinghorn, who won one gold and four gold medals, shared the award.

Ben Sandilands shared the Para Athlete of the Year award with Samantha Kinghorn. (Image: Bobby Gavin.)

He followed in the footsteps of club-mate and Dunfermline runner, Owen Miller, who won T20 1500m Paralympic gold at the delayed Tokyo Games in 2021, before also going on to win Para Athlete of the Year.

The duo are part of a coaching group led at Pitreavie Athletics Centre by Steve, who was jointly named as Para Athlete Performance Coach of the Year with Rodger Harkins, who works with Kinghorn.

Mark Pollard, head of performance with scottishathletics, told the organisation's website: "In the 4J Para Athlete of the Year category, we had two world class athletes making waves in Paris and, ultimately, we felt a joint award was the most appropriate outcome.

"Whilst there has clearly been Paralympic success in recent years from Scottish athletes, it was heartening to see athletes at different stages in their journey achieving Paralympic Gold in Paris this summer.

"Samantha gets better and better each year of her career and is approaching the peak of her powers – demonstrated by her world record performance earlier in the year as well as the Paralympic record, not to forget the ability to deliver five medals across her Paralympic programme.

"She has become an exceptional performer who consistently delivers – derived from incredible professionalism and dedication to her sport.

"Meanwhile, Ben excelled in his first Paralympic Games, racing to near perfections in his only event opportunity to deliver gold, and a world record performance.

"Ben firmly backed up his Para World Champs gold from 2023 and, of course, his training partner’s Paralympic 1500m gold from Tokyo (Owen Miller).

Ben Sandilands was honoured after winning gold at his first Paralympic Games. (Image: Bobby Gavin.)

"At just 21-years-old, we are all incredibly excited to see where Ben can go in the sport, and what levels he can aspire to should he continue to develop as he has in recent seasons.

"Reflecting the joint nature of the award, we also couldn’t separate Rodger Harkins and Steve Doig in our Para Performance Coach of the Year award."

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Elsewhere, there was recognition for former Pitreavie AAC hurdler, turned coach, Francis in the Performance Development Coach of the Year category.

Francis Smith was named Performance Development Coach of the Year. (Image: Bobby Gavin.)

He was rewarded for his work in developing a successful sprints and hurdles squad, including Rory Voss, Cameron Thores and Rebecca Grieve, who were all selected to represent Scotland in 2024, with the latter also winning bronze with Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Peru.

Pitreavie AAC themselves were shortlisted for two awards on the evening - Impact Club of the Year, which they were in the running for two years ago - and Track and Field Club of the Year, which they won in 2021.

On this occasion, the awards were presented to North Ayrshire AC and Kilmarnock Harriers.

In addition, Marc Fairbairn, a member of PAACE (Pitreavie AAC Endurance) picked up the jogscotland Achiever of the Year award at the event.

He began a 'Couch to 5K' with them late last year, aiming to run 10K to raise funds for Cancer Research UK in memory of a friend and, after finding running for 60 seconds a challenge in the beginning, he went on to complete his first 10K in May, before going to complete a half marathon.