Christianburg Wismar Secondary School (CWSS) emerged winner of the inaugural Jubilee Relay Festival which was staged at the National Track & Field Centre at Leonora on Friday.
Amidst protest from the students and teachers of the first runner up, West Demerara Secondary School, the Linden-based outfit was awarded the champion’s trophy in the event which was organized by the Ministry of Education and Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG).
CWSS tallied 46 points compared to 40 by West Demerara while Uitvlugt Secondary took third with 30 points. Bartica Secondary was fourth with 29 points, and Mahaicony Secondary rounded out the top five with 24 points.
Tutorial High School (20), Lodge Secondary School (18), St John’s College (18), Chase Academic Foundation (13) and Central High (13) were the next five to follow.
Also participating were North West Secondary (12), Golden Grove Secondary (10) and President’s College (1).
Meanwhile, in the tertiary category, the University of Guyana walked away with straight wins in all of their events, namely the boys’ and girls’ 4×100 and medley relays.
CWSS ran to gold in the boy’s open 4x100m and girls’ 800m medley, while taking second behind West Demerara in the girls’ open 4x200m.
Tutorial High placed first place in the boys under 13 4x100m and sprint medley, as well as the boys’ under 15 4x200m.
The event which finished more than four hours after its scheduled conclusion (16:30hrs) had its fair share of glitches. This was admitted by President of the AAG, Aubrey Hutson yesterday.
“We had a number of glitches that resulted in late entries and some discrepancies did show up in the haste to get the student athletes home.”
Hutson reasoned that “we were dealing with 32 athletes at a time and not the customary eight.”
He also disclosed that in the future, the AAG will be sticking to its deadline. “At the deadline we only had eight entries, but the night before the competition, we had 18 but we chose to accommodate them and that led to some hiccups.”
Chants of “injustice” came from the West Demerara camp as Christianburg was announced the winner.
“West Dem was leading all the time, so to say now that we have lost it is hard for us to accept that,” said one angry teacher.” She added “Everything went smooth all day for West Dem so to say now that we have lost it is hard for us to accept that. We were here from 8 o’clock to 9:10pm just to hear this?” she questioned.
