Sailor Paula Lewin and cyclist Melanie Claude would appear to be going head to head for the Female Athlete of the Year award this week.

Like her male compatriot, Peter Bromby, Lewin has also qualified for next year's Olympics in the Yngling class.

The highlight of 2002 came when she breezed to victory in the inaugural Bermuda International Women's Match Racing Championship.

Having all the hometown hopes resting on her slender shoulders, Lewin led her crew to a 2-0 sweep in the finals in Hamilton Harbour over current world number one women's match racer, Marie Bjorling of Sweden.

"It's a big deal for us. We have won on the match-racing circuit before and been ranked number one but it's nice to perform like this in our home waters and let everybody see our sailing ability," Lewin said afterwards. "We have not been match-racing a lot so to defeat the world number one is rewarding. It feels good."

Lewin more than held her own at the Gold Cup as well, being the lone female to reach the quarter-finals.

Claude, meanwhile, was part of Bermuda's Commonwealth Games cycling team.

Claude pipped team-mate Julia Hawley to the local bragging rights during the women's time trial at the event in Manchester, England.

The Island pair were among 20 women who tackled two laps of the 11.7 kilometre course at Rivington, outside of Bolton, Lancashire.

The riders were split into two groups of ten to ease congestion on the twisty, hilly circuit with Hawley third away in the opening group and Claude leading off the second.

Hawley clocked a time of 38:50.9 for 15th overall, while Claude crossed the line in 38:37 for 14th overall, no mean feat considering she was using a bike set up for road racing rather than time trialling.

A week later after completing eight laps of the demanding 93.6 kilometre road race course, Hawley and Claude finished 24th and 25th respectively, both awarded the time of 2:42.47 along with a host of other riders.

Further success came at the Caribbean Championships in Curacao where Claude took gold in both the road race and the time trial, Hawley grabbing two silvers.