By Michelangelo Jacobus
On day three of the 57th National Schools’ Cycling, Swimming and Track and Field Championships, the defending champions District 10 (Upper Demerara/Kwakwani) also called Linden, seemed well poised as they built a solid foundation for a successful title defense while four records also tumbled.
District 6 (Corentyne) continued their impressive start to this year’s “Nationals” by going toe to toe with the defending champions. Having already won the cycling championships on Monday, the Corentyne athletes maintained their consistent performances and continued to place among the top four positions on the day.
However the champs ended the day in the lead with 87 points after 17 finals while Corentyne was in second with 73 points.
Early in the day World Junior 400m Silver Medalist Daniel Williams (Upper Demerara/Kwakwani) cruised to first place to win his qualifying Boy’s U-18 heat in a time of 51.08s while Jermain King (New Amsterdam/Canje) impressed to finish second with 51.29s. East Georgetown’s Daniel Melville came in just behind at 51.80s to finish third.
In the second 400m heat New Amsterdam’s Laurindo Prince blazed his way to the final winning his heat in 49.23s. He was followed by South Georgetown’s Brian Roman with 50.75s while Stayon Wilson finished third with 52.15s.
South American Youth Games 400m Gold medalist Deshana Skeete pulled no punches as she dominated her Girls U16 heat to progress with 58.11s, she was chased by West Demerara’s Keliza Smith who finished at 59.61s while Princess Browne out of East Georgetown came in third with the clock at 1:01.60s.
Middle distance phenom Joanna Archer of West Demerara was also in action and was in a class by herself winning the Girls U-18 400m heat in 59.63s, she was followed by South American U-20 Long Jump Gold medalist Chantoba Bright who stopped the clock at 1:01.29s. Coming in third was Tandika Haynes (New Amsterdam) who crossed the finish line at 1:02.76s.
Bright followed up her qualification for the 400m final by out jumping her rivals to cop gold in the Girls U-18 Long Jump final with a winning leap of 5.89m.
East Georgetown’s Cassie Small was also dominant winning the Girls U-20 400m heat in 1:0.5s; Kezra Murray represented West Demerara impressively to come in second at 1:01.32s while Toyan Raymond (East Coast Demerara) was third in 1:01.86s.
The 4x100m Open Relay heats later in the afternoon provided much entertainment to the spectators. The District 10 boys suffered a shock disqualification after a baton pass mishap. Speaking after the race, Daniel Williams pointed out that “these things do happen” but admitted that he was disappointed. He also revealed that he was impressed with the level of competition this year and warned that he will be gunning for the record in the 400m final on Friday.
The first record to tumble was the Girls U-12 400m which came courtesy of Corentyne’s Putrina Sullivan who clocked 1:05.75s to win gold and write her name in the history book. Toyan Raymond was the next athlete to set a new record, this time in the Girls U-20 long jump. Raymond recorded a best leap of 5.7m on her way to gold.
In the Boys U-14 400m Wesley Tyndall erased Williams’ four year old record of 54.95s when he clocked 54.50s.
Carl Williams broke a 26 year old Men’s U-20 Long Jump record when he covered a distance of 7.11m; the previous record holder was Rickford Dean who jumped 6.90m in 1991.
The championships will continue today with action beginning at 09:00hrs.
