They were Singapore's brightest athletic stars of 2015, and readers of The Straits Times will get a chance to meet these trailblazers of local sport later this month.

The paper's annual Athlete of the Year award ceremony will be held on Feb 26 at the Raffles City Convention Centre and 20 readers will be part of the exclusive guest list.

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu will be the guest of honour for the gala lunch, which will gather the five nominees as well as members of Singapore's sports fraternity.

Said ST's sports editor Marc Lim: "We witnessed some outstanding performances from our athletes last year. But sport is also about the fans and we want to ensure that local supporters have the opportunity to meet these home-grown heroes and hopefully be inspired by them."

Three of the five contenders for the accolade, which was launched in 2008 and is backed by F&N's 100Plus, are women.

They are Shayna Ng, winner of the All Events title at the Women's World Bowling Championships; SEA Games 200m sprint gold medallist Shanti Pereira; and para-swimmer Yip Pin Xiu, who broke the world record in the S2 50m backstroke en route to gold in December's Asean Para Games in Singapore.

The other two are para-footballer and national captain Khairul Anwar, the first local to score a hat-trick at the National Stadium; and last year's Athlete of the Year winner Joseph Schooling, who clinched a bronze medal in the 100m butterfly at the Fina World Championships.

Jonathan Wong