…too young for Italy championships
Jevina Straker, Guyana’s lone gold medallist at the recent Carifta Games won’t be going to the world junior championships in Italy this year after all as she is too young.
This was revealed yesterday when the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) held a press briefing with members of the team from the 38th Carifta Games held in St. Lucia to officially congratulate them. The briefing was held at the Guyana Olympic House.
A squad of nine departed from Guyana on April 7th for the four-day games which ran from April 10–13.
Present at the ceremony was U-17 Female 1500m gold medallist Straker, Janella Jonas and Ricardo Martin along with Guyana’s premier female middle distance and distance athlete Alika Morgan, a medal hopeful, who was unfortunate not to land a podium position in this her final Carifta year due to an injury.
At the conclusion of the games Straker and Jonas who grabbed Gold and Bronze in the U-17 female 1500m respectively and Martin who captured Silver in the same distance in the male category automatically qualified based on their times for the 2009 IAAF World Junior Championship which is scheduled to be held in Italy in July.
However, Straker suffered a misfortune when the AAG were alerted by the International Athletics Association Federation (IAAF) that their lone Gold Medalist was too young to participate in the prestigious games.
Straker who won in a time of 4:42.89s ahead of Jamaica’s Petrene Plummer (4:43.65s) and fellow compatriot Jonas (4:45.05), was born in 1994 and had to be born in 1992-1993 to be eligible to compete in Italy.
Jonas will now take Straker’s spot and she will represent Guyana alongside Martin.
At the press briefing, First Vice President of the association, Cornel Rose disclosed that Guyana had a fourth World Champs qualifier, Chavez Ageday. He qualified in the male U-17 200m with a time of 22.77s against 22.9s.
However, the IAAF which will be providing the airfare for the qualified athletes gave Guyana a quota of two athletes, one male and a female, even after the AAG contacted them after making the discovery that Ageday was also eligible to participate.
Morgan’s injury
Morgan sustained an ankle injury leading up to the Carifta Games and her foot was in a cast for 24 days. When it was removed she had approximately nine training days, according to her coach Leslie Blackman.
“I was not one hundred percent fit because I was not doing the training I was suppose to before the tournament because of my injury but I wanted to run mostly because it was my final year to compete at Carifta”, Morgan stated.
“My injury was the cause for not being able to medal but I performed at my best when I went out to run. During the races my ankle did not hurt and I thought my performance was good enough although I did not have enough time to prepare”, she added.
Morgan just missed a podium finish in the 3000m race when she placed fourth and grabbed a seventh place finish in the 1500m.
Even though not fully recovered from the injury Morgan has made it clear that she will be competing in the Inter-Guianas Games next weekend.