Guyanese junior and senior athletes successful at Sagicor National Championships

Jun 28, 2012 Sports

By Juanita Hooper
Track and Field in Guyana will be one of the sports to produce more Olympians in years to come as the country is in the process of constructing its first ever synthetic track in Leonora, West Demerara. The synthetic track, which will facilitate a football field in the centre, will assist in Guyana being more globally recognized in the sport, which has not seen much recognition since the late 70’s early 80’s.
In the past year when athletics was on a high, the land of many waters produced top class athletes including James Gilkes, Richard Jones, Oslen Barr and George de Peana among others.
Presently the sport has a new breed of athletes, Cleveland Forde, Cleveland Thomas, Winston George, Rupert Perry, Quinse Clarke among others who, are makig waves as the persist with their athletic careers, which seems to have a bright future for themselves and their country.
Recently a few of the athletes competed at the Trinidad and Tobago NAAA Sagicor/NGC National Open Track and Field Championships at the Hasley Crawford Stadium.
The Open National Track and Field Championship which was held in Port-of-Spain last weekend over a two day period (Saturday and Sunday) saw most of the athletes achieving new personal best times in their events.
Police Progressive Youth Club (PPYC) athlete, Winston George, the only local athlete thus far to qualify for the London Olympics (next month) in the 400m finished second in the Men’s B class 400m.
George, who qualified for the Olympics at the ALBA Games which was held in Venezuela last year, turned in a time of 46.51 seconds in the finals after clocking 47.70 seconds (3rd place) in the preliminary round.
The talented athlete recently returned from his five months training session in Jamaican with his training partner, Quinse Clarke of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) who was unfortunate not to qualify for the 100m at the National Open Track and Field Championship. Clarke registered 10.88 seconds.
Also competing in the Men’s 400m at the Games were, Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) National Junior 200m champion athlete, Elton Bollers and President’s/Jefford Classic 200m champion athlete, Stephan James of Running Brave Athletic Club.
Bollers, unable to qualify for the finals, ran to a new personal best time of 48.89 seconds after finishing fourth place in his heats. James, an Inter-Guiana Games gold medalist, crossed the line in the 400m finals in 7th place to register 47.33 seconds after qualifying with 47.32 seconds. Former Royal Youth Movement (RYM) athlete turned in a time of 50.79 seconds in his preliminary round.
Neisa Allen, AAG runner-up female athlete of the year, stormed a new personal best time in the Women’s 400m B class race in a time of 55.46 seconds to secure the final spot (third place) on the podium.
Her training partner, Alicia Fortune who is presently pursuing her Olympic quest, has this far failed to achieve her dreams. She copped a bronze medal in the Women’s ‘B’ 200m final in a time of 24.60 seconds on day two (Sunday) after missing the 100m (12.06 seconds) podium on the Saturday.
Cleveland Thomas, President’s/Jefford Classic gold medalist who stated that he had a nice race in the Men’s 1500m, raced to a new personal best time also, to secure a silver medal after registering 3:56.16 seconds.
Thomas who clocked 1:58 seconds in the Men’s 800m preliminary was incapable to qualifying for the finals, “I did not get enough recovery time after my 1500m, so I was unable to make the finals. I only had 45 minutes to recovery and that was not enough time after running a PB in the previous race.”
Wayne Harlequin came in third in his 800m heats in 1:55.93 seconds.

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Guyanese junior and senior athletes successful at Sagicor National Championships

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