Guyana’s leading distance athlete Cleveland Forde once again missed out on sweep of all three races of the annual South American 10K event when he placed second behind Columbian Jason Gurieneer in the third staging of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) South American Athletics Confederation 10 km Road Classic, yesterday in Panama.
According to reports from Dennis Horatio, the other Guyanese athlete and Claude Blackmore, manager of the two-man team, Forde clocked 31 minutes and 29 seconds, but this was not enough to overcome the 30 minutes and 36 seconds produced by Gurieneer in his winning performance in the men’s category.
Third place went to Panama’s Augustuo Alizar who clocked 33 minutes and 50 seconds.
Forde had won the first two legs of the race that were held last month in Guyana and Suriname, respectively. Brazil’s Antonia Da Silva who won the women’s category “in a time yet to be announced”, managed the sweep that Forde missed, according to Blackmore.
Second place of the women’s category went to Andrea Ferris of Panama, while third place went to Bocadc Bell of the USA, who is currently training in Panama.
According to Blackmore, Bell had indicated that it was her first ever attempt at a 10km event.
Up to the time of the conclusion of the Awards Ceremony, the full results with times were not available to visiting teams and clubs but the organizers of the event, the Athletics Federation of Panama have promised the results will be received by all later yesterday.
Horatio yesterday told Stabroek Sport that himself and other visiting athletes ended up taking a wrong turn that had them running some 17km, off course.
According to Horatio, “due to bad organizing me and the Brazilian run wrong route because there were no officials and just one outrider, I ran about 17km this morning.”
The Brazilian athlete was identified by Blackmore as being Nelson Da Silva.
