By Treiston Joseph
The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) yesterday congratulated the athletes who represented Guyana at the North America, Central America and Caribbean (NACAC) cross country race in Trinidad last Saturday.
Guyana’s male runners placed fifth overall as a team out of 20 participating countries, with leading distance runner and 1500 meters record holder Cleveland Forde coming in 11th out of 44 participants with a time of 24:58.8.
Forde was the second Caribbean athlete to cross the finish line.
His teammate Nathanie Giddings outran his other senior compatriots Cleveland Thomas, Dennis Horatio, team captain Wilbert Mingo and Hezron Pedro who came in at numbers 28, 30, 31, 37 and 38 respectively with times of 27:04.5, 27:10.5, 27:23.5, 28:28.5, 28:29.7 respectively.
Alika Morgan had withdrawn from the event owing to an injury leaving Doretta Wilson as Guyana’s lone female representative.
Wilson placed 20th out of 22 participants in the junior women’s four kilometre cross country race in her international debut.
“It’s a whole different level of competition. My preparation for this meet was short when compared to some of the other international athletes who were training since October and this probably caused a fall back on my performance but I was still pleased with my run,” Cleveland Thomas told Stabroek Sport yesterday.
Team captain Mingo stressed that his responsibilities weighed a lot on him. As captain, he said he had to attend meetings and was tired and could not compete at a better standard.
Seasoned campaigner Horatio was upset when he learnt that he had to use distance spikes while he only had his jogging sneakers. He was forced to solicit the use of someone else’s spikes which made him somewhat uncomfortable while running the race and according to him that caused his substandard performance.
Distance runner Hezron simply said, “I feel I did well but the pace was too much and I could not hold that pace with them,” while Wilson stated that “the race was good, I tried my best and it was a different type of course to the one here.”
Forde was unavailable for comment on his performance.
According to the manager of the team Sonja Abraham at a press conference held yesterday only two Guyanese athletes, Horatio and Forde, could have been identified by their national uniforms given to them some time ago by the officials and it was displeasing.
Abraham also stressed the fatigue that the trip caused, especially for Mingo who she believed could have done better but was hampered by his responsibilities as captain. The manager noted also that Wilson had suffered jet lag and some eating disorder which seriously affected her chances of a better performance.
President of the AAG Colin Boyce explained that he had made an effort to acquire uniforms.
“I was trying to get some uniforms but the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) claimed to have insufficient uniforms and was trying to keep what they have for bigger meets such as the PAN American Games,” he disclosed.
Boyce added: “I think the team has done well generally even though the times were not as I expected it would have been, but hats off to the team and next year we will look to get the proper gear for the games and the terrain. All in all I want to say thank you to the athletes for their efforts and look forward for their continued health for the rest of the season.”
The 2011 NACAC Cross Country Championships was the seventh edition of the continental cross country running competition which took place at Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago last Saturday. A total of 166 athletes took part in the event, hailing from a record high of 20 nations within the North America, Central America and Caribbean region.
The competition featured four races: an 8km senior men’s race, a 6km senior women’s race, a 6km junior (under-20s) men’s race and a 4km junior women’s race. The course for the championships followed a 2-kilometer grassy loop and was relatively flat throughout, according to Wikipedia.
Meanwhile the AAG plans to host their next competition on March 6, which would be the Inter-Guiana Trials for selection of the team that will compete in Suriname from May 12-16.
