By Rawle Toney
Guyana’s female track star Alika Morgan added silverware to her collection after winning the fifth annual Srefidensi Suriname Marathon last Saturday in the Dutch speaking country.
Morgan finished in a time of three hours, 23 minutes.
The defending champion, from Holland, who had won the female title at the event on four consecutive occasions, finished a distant second.
With the win, Morgan won both the senior and junior female categories and was ninth overall.
Leading up the run, she competed in three events of the national schools championships which were held in Linden last week winning the 10K event and qualifying for the final of the open 800M but she left for the marathon during the Nationals.
Speaking to Stabroek Sport yesterday after returning to Guyana, Morgan said that even though it was her first marathon it was a very good race.
She added that the atmosphere was very cool and the course very difficult.
“I ran a very comfortable race, I didn’t really had any trouble. The only thing is that I was feeling a pain in my feet at the early stages of the race, but I was able to run it out. I had good support from the Guyanese and Surinamese since they recognized me from winning the 10K last month. So it was a great experience,” she said.
Meanwhile, Lionel D’ Andrade, competing in his ninth marathon and his second in Suriname finished third in a very strong field of competitors which included fellow Guyanese Cleveland Forde and Kelvin Johnson.
D’Andrade finished in a time of two hours 42 minutes while Kenyans took the first two places in two hours, 32 minutes and two hours 35 minutes respectively.
D’Andrade said that he was in fifth position for most part of the race with the front-running Kenyans receiving stiff challenge from Forde.
“Cleveland was running a very good all races. Also Kelvin. But Forde was giving the Kenyans a real fight all through, while I was not too far from them.
“Somehow coming down to the bottom of the race Forde dropped out also Johnson, who finished fourth” said D’ Andrade.
D’ Andrade, whose personal best time in a marathon is two hours 35 minutes, said that he was gearing up for the Trinidad 5K race which will take place on Sunday.
He owed his participation at the event in Suriname to Rajkumar Ganesh, the proprietor of Double Decker hotdogs and burgers.
Llewellyn George claimed the Masters 45-55 title. Some 40 plus athletes both male and females took part in the event.