JASON McKay, coach and manager of Jamaica’s combined martial arts team, said he is anxiously awaiting the list of nominees for the 2025 Sportsman of the Year Award after Akino Lindsay’s feat of notching five consecutive double gold medals at International Sport KickBoxing Association’s Amateur Members Association (ISKA AMA) World Championships.

Lindsay won his fifth double gold in Brisbane, Australia, last month, having first landed the individual double on home soil in 2018 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

“I wonder if this year he will be a contender for Sportsman of the Year or will again be restricted to the taekwondo category?” pondered McKay, who has openly questioned the annual awards’ preference to reward track and field athletes though martial artists also compete on the world stage at international championships.

“Akino Lindsay is possibly one of the most successful Jamaican athletes for the last decade,” McKay pointed out.

“In 2024, he was recognised by ISKA, the world’s biggest martial arts organisation, for what was a world record up to 2023, eight consecutive individual gold medals, to which he added four in two years, two double gold,” McKay noted.

After missing 2019 and the COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021, Lindsay won double ISKA AMA gold medals in Turkey 2022; Munich, Germany, 2023; and Vienna, Austria, in 2024.

Lindsay’s double in Brisbane 2025 moved his ISKA AMA gold-medal tally to 13 overall, 12 individual and one team gold won at home in 2018, having first won gold and silver on debut in Portugal 2015, repeating the feat two years later in Greece.