NY, USA — These days, World Masters indoor sprint champion and record holder Val Barnwell feels like a ‘proud papa worthy of emulation’. And, he has four fast reasons to be.
Almost symbolically, Barnwell will today pass the proverbial baton as he steps off the track to watch a foursome of young Guyanese athletes whom he recently brought to the USA, compete at the prestigious Millrose Games 2014.
Alita Moore, Jevina Straker, Chavez Ageday and Stephan James will have their reasons to deliver to Barnwell’s pride pool when they line-up for relay races at the 107th running of the celebrated annual indoor meet at the New Balance Track & Field Center at the Armory in New York City. The Games which moved from the world famous Madison Square Garden in 2012 features track and field’s most prolific male and female stars as well as collegiate and high school competitors, sprinkled by a handful of masters and kiddies races.
“Oh! … Am pretty excited for them tomorrow (today). This is Millrose, you know? The best up and down the charts compete here. They going to be fine,” Barnwell’s pride swelled while talking to this newspaper. “I know what the big picture is,” Barnwell declared, alluding to preparing the young Guyanese for major meets like the Olympics and World Championships. “The main thing is to get them ready.”
Collectively, it’s the quartet’s first major meet since arriving in the USA on student-athlete scholarship at New York’s ASA College – a Division III institution. The sprints coach at ASA College, Barnwell said the athletes have added spark to the school’s track team, and have all earned their berths to run on this big stage. Most of all, he’s proud of the enormous strides they are making.
Yesterday afternoon, Barnwell was caught overseeing his charges at a college prep meet on New York’s St. Anthony’s High School track. “We right now running against a few other schools getting ready for tomorrow and Nationals which in the first weekend in March.” He said Ageday returned a sparkling 6.92s in the Men’s 60m dash to lead the field, while Moore ran 8.01s to stand at 2nd on the distaff side.
Of the four, James and Ageday will step on track first for the 13-team field of the Men’s 4x200m Club Relay. Then, Moore will anchor her team in the Women’s 4x200m Club Relay, before James returns for the Men’s 4x400m College Relay. Straker and Moore will shuttle the baton to close of the Women’s 4x400m College Relay.
Moore, who was the last to migrate, is just rounding out a month since her overture to American life. Conversely, her compatriots have been acclimatizing since early November when they travelled to the USA with Barnwell.
Barnwell said the athletes’ moulding comes “full circle Guyanese” as he works with Guyana-born track coaching doyen Kenrick Smith on the runners. “As a national coach who has an IQ over me, Kenrick is basically assisting with a lot of work with these athletes. Actually, I have great faith in him since he also prepared me for my Masters competition, especially the last one in Brazil.” He added that Smith is “doing a tremendous job with Stephan, Chavez and Jevina,” while he works with Moore.
The ASA quartet will be joined by other Guyana-born performers who’d hit the state-of-the-art six-lane, 200m Mondo oval, dubbed ‘the fastest track in the world’. Among them are Deon Bascom (Men’s DMR), Brenessa Thompson (Girls’ 55m High School and Girls’ 4x200m Eastern H.S.), Ashley Tasher (Girls’ 4x200m Eastern H.S) and Jeremy Bascom (Men’s 60m Elite).
But, the newly-planted foursome has backstories unique to the other Guyanese athletes. They had a short time to get over the culture shock of the USA. They were waylaid by frigid New York climes. Now, almost, like overnight they run with the best. Nonetheless, Barnwell feels they will ‘compete’. “This unusually cold period affected them terribly, but these athletes adapted to this weather more than I thought they would, and that says a lot for their drive.”
If that rejoinder stirs Barnwell, he might be in for another period of amalgamated pride, today.
Parts of the meet will be televised live on NBCSN-TV from 3PM to 5PM, and the webcast is available at USATF.tv from 1PM to 7PM.