Guyana will be represented by a four-member team at this week-end’s Central American and Caribbean championships which began yesterday and will end on Sunday in Colombia, the Amateur Athletic Association of Guyana said yesterday.
Leading the team will be national 400m female record holder and former Commonwealth gold medalist Aliann Pompey who just came off a sensational performance of 51.07s in Bulgaria.
The other members of the team will be 100m and 200m sprinters Lee Powell and Jeremy Bascom and 800m runner Deon Bascom.
While Pompey has recently been turning in some top timings to tune up for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games for which her 51.07 time qualified her, the other three athletes will all be making a last-minute push to qualify for Beijing.
Powell had told Stabroek Sport earlier this year at the Hampton International Games in Trinidad and Tobago that he would be making a strong push to qualify for the Olympics this year, before subsequently winning the 200m in 20.98s at that event.
He had added that he would be looking to run the qualifying time for both the 100m (10.28s or less) and 200m (20.75s or less) at this weekend’s CAC.
Although Deon Bascom took part in the 800 and 1500m races at the collegiate level, he will only be appearing in his stronger event- the 800m – and will try to make the Olympic qualifying time of 1:47s.
Locally-based sprinter Rawle Greene has not been selected by the AAG but told Stabroek Sport said that he was looking into the possibility of financing his own trip to the CAC Championships.
