The inaugural ten inductees in the Bermuda Sports Hall of Fame have been selected.

However, Bermudians must wait until a gala presentation ceremony in April at the refurbished Fairmont Southampton for the unveiling of these pillars of sporting excellence.

Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Hall, Rick Richardson, has described the chosen elite as having "varied backgrounds in sport" and "people who have been involved in the major sports ? cricket, soccer, track and field ? or (who) have been in administration".

He revealed that three or four of them are deceased and that the choices span as far back as personalities from the 1950s. More men than women, he added, have been picked.

Asked if he felt the inductees reflected the spectrum of local sports over the ages, the contributions made and the community's views, Richardson replied: "Yes, very much so. The Board was very satisfied. The conclusions we arrived at were supported by the data and the information we got from the public.

"We were in harmony with what the public thought."

Bermudians ? whom the chairman praised for their input in this landmark Government venture ? submitted more than 300 nominees last year to be considered for the Hall of Fame. That was systematically reduced to 50 and from there to 20 names before the final round of voting.

"It was fairly easy to get to the final 50 because of the very solid input from the public. It was more difficult to get it down to 20 and the real difficult part was boiling it down to ten persons from 20.

"That was extremely difficult. We deliberated a couple of weeks on that and then spent almost an entire Saturday on the final process. The Board met and laid before us all of the background information on those final 20 and applied a ten-point voting process. At the end of that Saturday we came out with the ten inductees."

That painstaking procedure was concluded by November but it was decided to hold the ceremony in April to give the Board enough time to plan an elaborate gala event and to secure a suitable venue.

In an effort to maintain the surprise element of this signal occasion, Richardson explained that the 20 finalists or their representatives will be invited to the ceremony and only then will they and the rest of Bermuda learn who the inductees are.

"That way we would guard the final announcement," noted the chairman.

Profiles of these champions of Bermudian sports will be read and there will also be an audio-visual presentation.

Richardson explained the process took longer than anticipated because the Board went to the public three times for guidance in their deliberations.

Following that, the Board waded through piles of background information, soliciting the help of various people in this regard.

"To further propel the process, Board member Charles Brown, with assistance from the Department of Personnel Services, filtered the data through a specific software programme that gave us the cumulative net value of each nominee, based on the public's input.

"We wanted to get things right and to be fair, especially this first time."

While no permanent ? or even temporary ? location has been officially cited for the Hall of Fame, Richardson said the prevailing sentiment is that it should be part of the National Sports Centre and, at present, that is the plan.