Hutson pleased with staged South American 10K road race

– impressed by youngsters’ performances

President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Hutson, is pleased to have gotten some competition going before the end of 2020. He is even more elated that the recently concluded South American 10K road race was smoothly run off.

“I’m very, very happy! I must say, ‘Thanks!’ to the members of the LOC, who have done a lot of work over the last couple of days. I know, personally, I would have been engaging the COVID-19 Task Force, cause that’s the biggest hurdle that we had to cross. And I think we’ve done a great job here today,” Hutson said when asked about the hosting of the South American 10K road race on Sunday last.
Elated that the AAG was able to comply with all the stipulations of the COVID-19 guidelines, Hutson shared his thoughts on Sunday’s competition.
“Being President of the AAG, you know, congratulations to the winner. My own insight, I thought Cleveland Thomas was a better conditioned athlete, but it continues to show that Missigher is really a fierce competitor, and once you come to run with him, you really have to bring your ‘A’ game. If you don’t do that, you will lose,” Hutson said.
He also explained that while the times clocked are good locally, more international competition is the only remedy to bettering this aspect of the race.
“It’s something that we continue to talk about. Some of the coaches are critical of the AAG for having athletes running that slow, but they have to realise that it’s their athletes, and they are not training them well enough to run faster,” Hutson declared.

The AAG President has thus posited, “The thing that can spike this up for us is international competition. We know what we would’ve seen in 2015 with the two guys coming in from Peru, and it was our intention, if the borders were open, to have that kind of competition here today (Sunday).”
The AAG boss was also happy with the stellar performances recorded by youngsters like the Tyrell sisters, Sheama and Shaqua, and Odida Parkinson. He listed some measures, like better technical instruction, that would lend to improving the younger crop of athletes.
“What we have to continue to look for (are) the successors, the people who are going to replace the Cleveland Fordes and the other athletes too as they move off. Even in the sprinting events too, we have a good young crop of athletes coming up. We…have seen them in the schools’ nationals that (had) taken place this year,” Hutson said.
Further, he stated, “We’ll continue to do whatever we can do to let the talent continue to come out. We’re working with our coaches, trying to put together a proper club structure, that when these athletes come out to train, they have a proper environment and the right technical information coming from the coaches.”
The South American 10K 2020 was championed by Winston Missigher and Sheama Tyrell in the respective male and female categories. (Jemima Holmes)