By Treiston Joseph and Emmerson Campbell
Three sprint triples were recorded at the 51st edition of the National Schools Athletics, Cycling and Swimming Championships yesterday at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence amidst drama, protests and a hunger strike.
Jevina Sampson was the first to record a sprint triple in the female under-14 category after capturing the 100 metres on Thursday.
The 13-year old from North Georgetown ran away with the 400 metres earlier in the day with a record breaking time of 1:02.1s erasing the old record of 1:02.8s. She was then forced to run the 200 metres final ten minutes after the 400 metres final due to poor organizing of the event. However, Sampson pulled through to win the 200 metres in a time of 26.7s.
New under-16 100 metres record holder from West Demerara, Tevin Garraway suffered the same fate as Sampson but came through to win both the 400 metres and 200 metres to record his sprint triple in times of 53.7s and 23.8s respectively.
South Georgetown athlete Letitia Myles also went through the gruelling test of running the 400 metres and 200 metres one after the other but finished both events seemingly without any ill-effect as she clocked 1:03.7s and 26.7s respectively. Myles won the 100 metres on Thursday to claim her sprint triple.
Melissa Byass was also outstanding during the dramatic event as she claimed a triple by winning the girls under-16 400, 800 and 1500 metres in times of 1:01.3s in the 400 metres while running 5:17.6s in the 1500 metres. The New Amsterdam/Canje athlete won the 800 metres on Thursday.
In the absence of under-23 200 metres champion from South Georgetown Stephan James due to hip injury, junior sprint champion Chavez Ageday claimed a sprint double as expected as he clocked 22.8s to win the event after claiming the 100 metres on Thursday.
Two-time gold medallist at the Carifta Games Jevina Straker bounced back from her 10k defeat to claim a double by winning the 1500 metres yesterday in a time of 5:13.8s after winning the 800 metres earlier in the competition.
Meanwhile after 49 events and up to press time Linden (District 10) led the points table in track and field with 235. Corentyne 172 and West Coast Berbice 166 were in second and third respectively. Defending champion North Georgetown bounced from eighth to finish in fourth on 163 points up to press time.
Protests
Earlier in the day there were protests over the lack of food and the eligibility of one of the athletes. All together four hours were taken up settling these problems while athletes mounted protests of various sorts.
A protest was launched by South Georgetown’s team manager, Corwin Mars because an athlete from East Georgetown (District 12) was not registered to compete at the championships because his birth certificate was not handed in before the deadline. However, the athlete was still slated to compete as a result of being endorsed by the Guyana Teachers Union.
Several other athletes from various districts who had had the same problem were not able to be part of the championships.
It was learnt that calls were made to senior officials questioning why the athlete was not allowed to compete. The athlete had been scheduled to run in the event which he had won at the Inter Zones championship. He was however not notified that he would have been competing at the championships and so his birth certificate was not handed in.
Officials told Stabroek Sport that after discussions with the competition director and others it was agreed that the athlete must compete however by this time the event had already been completed.
The news of this apparently infuriated team managers especially Mars who instructed his athletes to sit on the track in protest.
GTU President Colin Bynoe, along with members of the police force, met with Mars on the track where they discussed settling the issue in a meeting.
All the team managers from the various districts were summoned to a meeting where it was agreed that the athlete would not compete.
This meeting lasted about 30 minutes but then another problem arose.
Food
Districts four and fourteen were without food and their team managers stressed that their athletes would not compete unless the problem was rectified.
Three and a half hours later the problem was apparently solved as the championships resumed at 18:30 hours.
On the first day of events the Rupununi team arrived just six hours before competition because of transportation issues. Also on the first day, most of the boys’ open road race cyclists were clueless as to where the turn back point was (Haslington) and journeyed as far as Mahaica.
On the second day, the officials were given whistles to use instead of a pistol to start races, officials on that same day walked off the field because they were not fed. Further, the relay teams were ill equipped because there were no batons.
Also, the day’s events which started at 13:30 hours because of rain saw postponements to the next day because the floodlights were not put to use because the hourly cost of $50,000 was apparently too high.
