Guyana’s leading distance athlete Cleveland Forde left here this morning for Barbados where he will be participating in the annual Run Barbados Series from today.
According to Forde, he will be participating in the 10km race at the prestigious event as he completes his 2010 athletic season. Forde also indicated that he may also run in the half marathon event.
Meanwhile, speaking with Stabroek Sport Caribbean female 10km champion at the event, Alika Morgan indicated that she may not be participating in the event this year, as she had not received her airline ticket up to yesterday afternoon.
The airline tickets for Forde and Morgan were being sponsored by the organizers of the event. The Run Barbados is an annual feature on the Barbados athletics calendar since 1983. It remains an impressive event that attracts the Caribbean’s top athletes as well as those from outside the region.
According to its website it has hosted several world-rated road runners. Events featured include the marathon, half marathon, 10km, 5km and 3km events.
Both Forde and Morgan are veteran participants at the event.
Last year Forde took part in both the 10km and half marathon, placing fourth in both events. He completed the half marathon event in 1:12.07s, and was the second Caribbean entrant to cross the finishing line, behind Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Jones.
Representing Guyana, Kelvin Johnson, who is also scheduled to participate again in the race this year, had finished behind Forde in the race.
Meanwhile Morgan was the first Caribbean female to finish in both the half marathon and the 10km event, while overall among the females she was third in the 10km, and copped the runner-up spot for the half marathon in a time of 1:33.06s.
Forde, in a telephone interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday, said that as usual he will be looking forward to putting his best foot forward in whichever races he participates in. But he acknowledged that he will be expecting to come up against stiff competition at the event.
“I’ve prepared to the best of my abilities, so I’ll just go there and run and do my best and we’ll see how I do. The competition is usually tough, there are a lot of Kenyans, and you have the Canadians so you have really stiff competition,” Forde said.
Forde has already had a good run for the year, representing Guyana at the Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC) in Puerto Rico, as well as the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in India.
Among his achievements this year is his personal record breaking performance in the 1,500m at the CWG where he reconfigured Guyana’s men’s record to 3:44.72s.
Forde also captured wins in the first two legs of the South American 10km Road Race, which was held in Guyana and Suriname respectively, and he landed a second place finish in the third leg in Panama.
Morgan expressed her disappointment that she might not be able to defend her status as the Caribbean’s leading lady at the Run Barbados event, especially because she had hoped to make a big finish to her season that had been plagued by illness.
Morgan had also taken part in the first two phases of the South American 10K, and had admitted that she was in poor health on both occasions. In the first leg she came in second and in Suriname she finished fifth.
