Story and photos by Jemima Holmes
Overcast skies on Sunday morning made for great conditions at the 2022 edition of the Ex-Athletes and Friends Inc annual Independence Road Race. Well over 40 athletes turned up on Carifesta Avenue, Georgetown for each of the respective categories, contesting the one-mile, 5K and 10K races.
When it was all done and dusted, it was Attoya Harvey who won her first-ever 10K race while Marlon Nicholson beat his experienced opponents for the win in the male division.
While the one-mile contest headed west on Carifesta Avenue towards a finish at the Police Sports Club Ground, Eve Leary, the other races took the opposite direction. The 5K, geared at younger athletes, headed onto the Rupert Craig Highway, before turning back at Sheriff Street, then down to the Kitty Public Road, onto Carifesta Avenue, then into Camp Road, before taking a turn at Barrack Street, Kingston and into Eve Leary. The 10K took the same route, but went up to the University of Guyana (UG) Road before making a U-turn.
(Jemima Holmes photos)
When the 5K action whistled off, Carifta silver medallist Javon Roberts took command of the junior race, leading the way for the entirety of the contest. The Running Brave athlete clocked 19 minutes, 42 seconds for the first-place finish.
Jemery Perreira of Bladen Hall Secondary was a close second, clocking 20 minutes, 19 seconds while Kaidon Persaud of Upper Demerara Schools took third in 20 minutes, 35 seconds.
Carifta finalist Hannah Joseph was champion of the female version of the race, crossing the finish line in 20 minutes, 59 seconds. Running Brave’s Esther McKinnon finished in 23 minutes, 41 seconds, while DeChallengers’ Marissa Thomas completed the podium in 24 minutes, 49 seconds.
In the big leagues, a number of the usual suspects took on the initiative to lead the 10K race, as Cleveland Thomas as the first to take command of the pack. Thomas and fierce rival Winston Missigher played cat and mouse for the lead, unaware of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) athletes in Nicholson and Odwin Tudor, who were waiting to strike.
The heavens made the event even more interesting with a ferocious downpour, minutes into the race that lasted for the remainder of the 10K.
By the time they got onto the Rupert Craig Highway, the leading pack was shaved down to six, with the inclusion of Ronell Newton and Sir Kennard Hartog.
The latter two fell away by the time they took the UG road turn on the East Coast of Demerara, with Missigher now taking the lead in front of Thomas.
Missigher persisted at the front, and by his own admission after the race, it was his plan to get ahead of the younger, stronger prospects in the leading pack. But, the plan proved futile, since at the Russian Embassy turn, Nicholson began challenging Missigher for the lead, which he was finally successful in achieving just past the National Park on Carifesta Avenue.
