The Police Progressive Youth Club yesterday afternoon dominated its annual Relay Festival, winning seven relays while Running Brave Athletics Club and Mercury Fast Laners captured four and one respectively at the Eve Leary ground.
The Police male and female teams ran away with the 4×100 metres relays.
The female team, anchored by Leota Babb, roared to victory with Babb chased by Mercury’s Ebony Nelson who was unable to pass Babb who dipped to the finish lien.
Running Brave settled for third in the event. Police received a good start from CARIFTA athlete, Alita Moore who then passed the baton to Tiffany Carto followed by Cindy Fraser.
The Police male of Keith Roberts, Tevin Garraway, Winston George and Shawn Semple was just as impressive as the females.
Guyana Defence Force finished second and Running Brave, third.
Police also won the 4x100m and 4x400m mixed relay events ahead of Mercury A and B teams in the 4x100m and Running Brave A and B team in the 4x400m.
Running Brave male and female teams turned the tables on Police when they took the double in the distance medley relay. The male team, running a well-planned race, took the event ahead of the Police team which had a comfortable lead.
Kevin Bayley ran the first leg, opening a gap on the athletes from Running Brave and Christiansburg Wismar Secondary School (CWSS) of Linden but the race was not over and in the final leg Running Brave’s Devon Barrington sprinted past Calvin Thomas of Police to claim the first spot for his team.
The female medley featured CARIFTA 1500m gold medalist athletes, Jevina Straker of Running Brave and Cassey George of CWSS in the final leg (800m) of the relay. Opening the relay in the 600m leg was Natricia Hooper who gave her team a head start. Running Brave looked unchallenged throughout the other two legs until George, who received the baton in third place challenged Straker who prevailed giving Running Brave the top spot. George eventually finished in second place for CWSS. Police came third.
Running Brave also won the female 4x400m and sprint medley relays ahead of CWSS and Police in the 400 and CWSS and Mercury in the sprint medley while Police won the male 4x400m ahead of GDF and Running Brave and the sprint medley ahead of Running Brave and Mercury.
Police was also victorious in the male 4x200m relay, compliments of Winston George who charged home with a powerful sprint ahead of GDF’s Leslain Baird who was in the lead for a while. Mercury Faster Laners came third.
George also dominated in the Men’s 400m. Trailing behind him in the event were GDF’s Akeem Stewart and Baird. Tiffany Carto of PPYC won the Women’s 400m invitational race ahead of Running Brave’s Natrina Hooper and Andrea Foster.
Alita Moore suffered an upset defeat in the Women’s 100m invitational when CARIFTA 200m bronze medalist, Tirana Mitchell pipped her at the finish line. Third was Ebony Nelson of Mercury Fast Laners. It was Moore’s first 100m defeat for the 2013 athletic season.
Running Brave’s Cleveland Thomas, who returned from Trinidad and Tobago (Falcon Games and Southern Games) a few weeks ago, won the Men’s 800m invitational ahead of PPYC’s Nathaniel Giddings and his club mate, Orin Prince.
CARIFTA 1500m gold medalist George and 400m and 200m bronze medalist Jason Yaw and Tirana Mitchell were presented with sport gear during the Relay Festival for their performance at the recent CARIFTA Games in the Bahamas.
The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) while host it’s Youth and Junior Championship this weekend at the Police Sport Club ground, Eve Leary. The championships will commence at 13:00hrs on Saturday and at 09:00hrs on Sunday.
Results from the relay festival:
Police Progressive Youth Club 7 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze
Running Brave Athletics Club: 4 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze
Mercury Fast Laners: 1 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze
Christiansburg Wismar Secondary School: 3 silver, 1 bronze
Guyana Defense Force: 2 silver, 1 bronze.
