Remarkable displays of speed, strength, stamina and leaping ability, enabled the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) to wrest the Inter Services Annual Athletic Championship trophy from the Guyana Police Force (GPF) last night at the Camp Ayangana ground.
The soldiers tallied 630 points to defeat their arch rivals by 65 points.
The Guyana Fire Service (92 points) and the City Constabulary (76 points) finished third and fourth respectively.
The Guyana Prison Service finished in the cellar on 63 points.
Throughout the three-day championships, the victors who earned one year’s bragging rights,
threw, leapt and ran away with most of the events while placing in the top five in many of the others.
Cleveland ‘Little Kenyan’ Forde, Ernesto Thomas, Davin Fraser, Neisa Allen, Patrick King, Tyrone Hamid and others were instrumental in GDF’s success.
Here are a few highlights:
After cruising to victory in the men’s 5000m, the ‘Little Kenyan’ who was touted to win the 1500m followed it up by placing second behind Thomas who ran a blistering 3:59.9 to add valuable points to the table.
In the men’s 200m, only Olympian, Winston George first place finish could prevent a clean sweep of the medals for the soldiers.
George easily won the men’s 400m, clocked 20.4s to win the marquee event, led Fraser (winner of the men’s 100m) and Patrick King (winner of the men’s long jump) across the line.
Fraser however sent the crowd into an uproar after he anchored the GDF men’s 4x100m men’s team which put on a baton passing clinic to the top spot ahead of the policemen.
In front of the large vocal crowd, Allen (24.2s) turned on the jets in the final 30m and dipped to take gold in the highly anticipated women’s 200m ahead of GPF’s Tiffany Carto (24.6s).
Allen then returned to blow by Leotta Bobb in the women’s 4x100m final leg to give her team the victory.
Under the floodlights, GDF’s Tyrone Hamid shone the brightest in the men’s high jump. The former national basketball player bagged gold in his first high jump competition with an eye popping jump of 1.76 metres. His team mate Leslyn Baird snared silver with a jump of 1.74m.
Baird also won the men’s triple jump and javelin events.
GDF then literally pulled away on the points table by winning the tug of war events.
This year’s competition could be deemed a success sans the hiccups with the starters pistol and the microphones. The rivalry continues next year.
