Headquarters sped out of the blocks to take a commanding lead over the other divisions when the Annual Guyana Police Force track and field championships commenced yesterday at the Police Sports Club Ground, Eve Leary.
Going into day one of the meet, one would have thought that Headquarters would have had to pull out a few tricks to keep ahead of a boosted ‘A’ Division (their main competition) when the championships began.
However, this was far from the case as Headquarters ended day one on 94 points with ‘A’ Division trailing way behind on 58 points, ‘B’ Division are in third position with 36 points while Country Division brings up the rear with 19 points.
Guyana was also way ahead in the ‘A’ Class competition, taking a resounding lead with 68 points while Trinidad and Tobago and Antigua were second and third with 32 and 14 points respectively.
Meanwhile, national athlete Trevor Scotland began his campaign with a tactical run in the men’s ‘A’ class 800 metres, outrunning his opponents in a time of 2:01.5s while another seasoned campaigner Dennis Horatio displayed signs of rust when he finished a disappointing last in the event.
Julio Sinclair continued his dominance from last year when he let loose a throw of 43.21 metres. Michael Pollydore was second with 36.50 metres while Ronald Payne was third with a throw of 35.57 metres.
In the long jump, Cindy Fraser flew off the long jump board to record 5.21 metres to win the event while Tracey Moses was second with a jump of 4.98 metres.
Local sprinter Keith Roberts also had some success in the long jump arena as well winning the ‘A’ class men’s long jump with a leap of 5.99 metres while Clarence Fraser 5.62 metres and Larry Josiah 5.27 metres were second and third respectively.
Zoning in on some sprints, Terry Easton was outstanding in the men’s 100 metres by winning cleanly against T. McKenzie and Okeme Stewart who were second and third respectively. Derwin Eastman won heat two ahead of Trevor Benn to set up a final clash on Friday in the men’s 100 metres.
The men’s 400 meters heats saw Mandela Collins trouncing Kevin Bailey in a time of 54.0s while Bailey recorded a time of 56.2s in heat one.
Heat two saw local table tennis star Nigel Bryan displaying some sprinting ability by winning heat two in a relatively slow time of 56.2s.
On the distaff side, Alita Moore flew out of the blocks to claim heat one of the women’s 100 metres ahead of Shannah Thornhill while Leota Babb took heat two quite comfortably ahead of Nadine Rodrigues.
In the women’s 400 metres, Thornhill showed shades of her former self by winning heat one in a time of 1:05.9s while Akeila Alves took second in a time 1:07.3s.
Rodrigues, who was expected to be the pick of the 400 metres women, fell to Janella Jonas who ran a time of 1:04.0s. Rodrigues came in second in 1:05.5s.
“Well I’m dealing with a hamstring problem… I didn’t exert much energy running the 400 I just tried to conserve and get to the final but I know that it wont affect me in the finals nor the 200 metres, I’ll be ready for all my finals, just the 100 metres I’m really worried about,” Rodrigues told Stabroek Sport yesterday. Day Two of the championships will continue today from 10:00 hrs at the Police Sports Club Ground, Eve Leary.
