Blown Away!

The highly anticipated 100M finals were the highlights of day four of the 57th National Schools Cycling, Swimming and Track and Field Championships especially in the Boys U-18 category where World Junior 400m Silver Medalist Daniel Williams sauntered to victory and in the process broke yet another record.

Williams who hails from District 10 (Upper Demerara/Kwakwani) has seen his team on the cusp of retaining their title amassing 326 points after 53 completed events. Their nearest threat is a surprise package in District 3 (West Demerara) who have 190 points while District 6 (Corentyne) are in third on 173.5 points.
The District 10 athlete had a bad start but held his nerve to recover strongly and simply canter over the finish line some distance ahead of second placed Umkosi Van Cooten and Jermain King who came in third. Williams’ final time of 10.65s was fast enough to set a new record eclipsing the old one which stood at 10.70s. Vancooten and King finished with times of 10.99s and 11.18s respectively.
After his record breaking run Williams pointed out that despite his bad start he stayed cam as he relied on his big stage experience to power down the homestretch en-route to gold. Williams who keeps getting faster and whose only real competition is the clock warned pretenders to the throne that he will be gunning for records in his pet events, the 400M and 200M.
Earlier in the U-20 Boys 100m New Amsterdam’s Titus Webster had a strong finish to hold off Brian Roman (South Georgetown) and Shawn Speirs (North West). Webster finished in 10.94s on his way to gold while Roman and Speirs had to settle for silver and bronze in that order
In the U-16 Boys 100m Deron Roberts of North Georgetown stormed to gold in 11.21s with Shamar Thom and Denzil Forte came second and third respectively.
The Girls U-16 100m was by and far the most entertaining female race of the day as District 10’s Deshauna Skeete held off West Demerara’s powerful sprinter Binka Joseph by split seconds to take gold. Skeete dipped over the finish line just ahead of Joseph to finish in a time of 12.26s while the former stopped the clock at 12.42s to claim silver. Brianna Charles rounded out the top three in 12.91s.
In the U-20 100m event Toyan Raymond dominated the field finishing first in 12.21s while Tonya Rawlins clocked 12.53s to win silver with Cassie Small finishing at 12.54s for bronze.
South Georgetown’s Tiffauna Garnett bested District 10’s Kezia Fraser in the Girls U-18 100m clocking 12.56s with the latter finishing at 12.69s. Kezia Moore was third in 12.91s.
Another record that was broken came in the Boys U-16 800m when Murphy Nash from District 10 obliterated Jomal Johnson’s 2013 record of 2:04.5s. Nash set a new bar at 2:01.43s with Triston Tappin coming in some distance behind with 2:06s and Whiddon Antigua third with the clock at 2:06.57.
National middle distance athletes Anfernee Headecker and Joanna Archer both fell short of setting new records in the Boys U-20 and Girls U-18 800m races respectively despite they both claimed gold.
The track and field action of the National Championships continue today at 09:00hrs at the Synthentic Track, Leonora, West Coast Demerara.