-elated on winning First leg of IAAF South American 10K in Suriname
By Rawle Toney
Guyana’s top female distance athlete Alika Morgan is enjoying a wonderful year in athletics.
Morgan represented Guyana at the youth Olympic Village in Beijing and went on to retain her title at the Antigua South American 10K before claiming her first South American 10k victory on Sunday in Suriname.
She now has her sights set on making it two wins in a row when the Guyana leg of the South American 10K is staged here Sunday.
Morgan won the first stage in the Dutch speaking country running 38:10s in what was also a good race for the Guyanese contingent.
Commenting on the race, Morgan said: “the race was good and the course was very easy. We ran the race at 5:30 in the afternoon which was very good and the course was flat and fast too.”
She said she received very good support since even Surinamese were backing her.
The male category was won by Guyana’s Cleveland Forde while the other two members of team Guyana Lionel D’ Andrade and Kelvin Johnson finished third and fourth respectively.
According to Morgan, Forde ran a wonderful race but his timing could have been better.
She added that Johnson was running much better now but had struggled with a burnt stomach.
Now the focus is on making a clean sweep of the championships with the second leg set for Guyana on Sunday.
Morgan says that she’s highly motivated from the win in Suriname and is more then ready for the challenge which will come from athletes from around the Caribbean.
“The only person that will push me to the limit is the woman from Brazil since she had won the race last year when I came second. But her presence will also see me pushing my self more to win the race,” said the soft spoken Morgan.
She was also high in praise for GT&T whom she said has been very good to her over the years and who helped make the trip to Suriname possible.
There will be eight participants from Trinidad and Tobago, four from Suriname – two from Brazil, two from Haiti and one from Grenada.
Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Cuba are entering this year’s road race while Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay have promised that they would like to send at least one athlete to participate.
