With about three months remaining to the biggest track and field rivalry in Guyana, the annual Joint Services Sports, the Guyana Police Force (HPF) will begin its selection process to find their top athletes today with the commencement of their annual track and field championships at the Police Sports Club Ground, Eve Leary.
Headquarters (HQ) are the defending champions for the past three years of the games and will look to top the various divisions again.
However, with ‘A’ Division receiving a boost as some of those athletes who competed for Headquarters last year were transferred to ‘A’ Division, a successful title defence might not be as easy as years gone by for Headquarters.
‘A’ Division will boast athletes such as 100 metres sprinter Terry Easton, 400 metres female sprinter Shannah Thornhill and with throwing giants Ronald Payne and Julio Sinclair.
While war will be raging between the two divisions, individual rivalry will also be brewing on the track when the event gets underway today.
Kevin Bailey and Dennis Horatio will be in a heated showdown in the men’s 1500 metres as Horatio who has fallen off form lately and could be in for a run since Bailey’s improved form and running tactics will be hard to stop.
The female’s 400 metres is also set to be a heated event as the once dominant and now recovering Thornhill will try to return to her glory days to challenge a resurgent Nadine Rodrigues and new comer Stacey Moses.
Sinclair and Payne might be competing for the same division but their rivalry in the men’s shot put will be renewed as the once dominant Payne was dethroned last year by Sinclair who happened to break Payne’s record as well.
Meanwhile, as Olympian Winston George is about to debut on the Olympic stage and will be missing from the sports, Easton is likely to take the men’s 100 metres but will be heavily challenged by Shawn Semple in the 200 metres, a race that might be the pick of the meet.
The 400 metres will be left wide open in the absence of George and Semple is the likely favorite to cap the event.
Sports Coordinator of the event and President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Assistant Superintendent Colin Boyce has delayed his departure with the Olympic team to ensure that everything goes smoothly with the sports.
“Well I believe that it will be an exciting week with some keen rivalries. Headquarters will strongly be challenged by ‘A’ Division because some of the top athletes have been transferred to ‘A’ Division, so it will be exciting competition and individual rivalries,” Boyce told Stabroek Sport via telephone.
As the stinging one-point loss to the Guyana Defence Force still lingers in the minds of the police athletes and officials, they definitely will be seeking their best athletes to try to overthrow their military counterparts when the Joint Services Sports roll around in three months time.
