By Emmerson Campbell
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) ground will come alive tomorrow when the University of Guyana (UG) hosts its annual inter faculty track and field championships.
The defending champions, the faculty of Health Sciences, will look to retain their title but is expected to face strong opposition from the Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences faculties.
Bragging rights along with prizes and trophies donated by Digicel will be up for grabs.
The male 100-metre event will be the feature race of the day as it is normally the most anticipated and hyped event.
Scheduled to set the ground ablaze will be Treiston Joseph, the first year Communications student who will be competing in the 100 and 200 metres.
Despite not lacing up his running shoes and donning his signature gold and green body suit in recent times, Joseph, who represented Guyana at the Carifta Games in 2006 and the Pan American Games in 2009 will be the favourite to capture the sprint double.
The 21-year-old Joseph, who won the 100 and 200 metre races at the 2008 Inter Guiana Games (IGG) in Suriname, will face opposition from Carlwyn Collins and Elton Bollers among other challengers.
The sports journalist who also successfully defended his IGG titles in 2009 on home soil has a personal best time of 10.5 and 21.8 seconds in the 100 and 200 metre events respectively.
Joseph, who owns the Schools National Under-16 100-metre record, was also the senior national 200 metre champion in 2009, a feat he accomplished as a teenager.
Stabroek Sport caught up with Joseph who spoke on his preparation and his future in athletics.
“Basically I’m just going into the events to have fun. I’m not going in there fully focused to just dominate like I used to, I want to go out there and enjoy it and hopefully do well.”
“I haven’t trained for the past eight months and I don’t have intentions of returning to the track at least at this point in my life but I think I will be able to do well in the 100 metre but the 200 metre I’m not so sure because of the lack of speed endurance but I will do my best.”
The day’s events will be declared open by the deputy Vice Chancellor Dr. Marlene Cox.
In an effort to increase participation there will be over 40-year races for students and lecturers both male and female.
Admission is free and the event commences at 10:00 hrs.
