This Week in NACAC: Fraser-Pryce sends early message

Fraser-Pryce sends an early message

Jamaica and NACAC sprinting sensation, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, served an early warning to her fellow sprinters that she is not quite done with running.

Competing at a meet in Nairobi, Kanya, on Saturday last, Fraser-Pryce clocked a world-leading

10.67 in the 100m, a mere 0.7 seconds off her personal best of 10.63 set last year ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

For NACAC, this sets a very special stage for what we can expect at the World Athletics Outdoor Championships set for Oregon in July. Other Jamaican female sprinters have been particularly dominant at the Olympics and World Championships in the past. However, with the Championships being in the USA, that country may well serve up some interesting talent to mount a challenge.

One thing is certain, NACAC is confident that its athletes will feature prominently at the World Outdoors, maintaining the leading role it already has in these competitions.

Vincentian Roban creates Penn Relay history

Vincentian athlete and reigning 800m Champion, Handal Roban, competing for Jamaica College, ran himself in athletics history by running the fastest 80m leg in a 4 x 800m relay as a schoolboy, at the annual Penn Relays – 1:48.12.

The Penn Relays, celebrating its 126^th edition this year, proved to be the ideal backdrop for Roban’s historic achievement.

Roban, the Carifta 800m gold medalist in the U17 category at the annual Carifta Games in Nassau, The Bahamas, in 2018, proved himself an authentic 800m athlete. On receiving the baton from the first leg athlete of his school and breezed, almost effortlessly, through the 800m, oblivious to the history he was making.

The performance earned Roban the prestigious High School Outstanding Athlete award at this year’s edition of the Penn Relays.

Amal Glasgow, also of St Vincent and the Grenadines and, like Roban, a former student of the St Vincent Grammar School, was in winners’ row when he helped his team, Kingston College of Jamaica, off to a winning start in the 4 x 400m relay.
Another Vincentian athlete to get onto the podium at this year’s Penn Relays was world-ranked junior, Uroy Ryan, a silver medalist at the recently concluded Carifta Games in Kingston, Jamaica, earned himself another silver medal with a leap of 7.54m.

Around NACAC

El Salvador

The Salvadorian Athletics Federation (Federación Salvadoreña de Atletismo) joined the international athletics fraternity in observing Kids Athletics Day on Saturday 7 May.

The Federation organized activities for more than 100 athletes in the U9, U11, U13 & U15 age categories, during the II Olympic Tournament of Track and Field events.

The athletes participate in sprints (60m and 80m), jumps (long jump), distance race (600m) and Kids Athletics relays.
The Salvadorian Athletics Federation is focused on developing and strengthening the Kids Athletics community, through athletics schools for the athletes U9, U11, U13 and U15 that can participate in every competition organized by the federation.

II Olympic Track and Field Tournament in El Salvador

The Salvadoran Athletics Federation convened its II Olympic Track and Field Tournament.

The event was held at the athletics facilities of the University of El Salvador (UES) and at the Armed Forces Transmission Support Command (CATFA) in San Salvador.
A total of 263 athletes belonging to 24 clubs and national teams, including guest athletes from Guatemala, contested the event. Athletes from the El Salvador Paralympic Committee (COPESA) and the Salvadoran Cerebral Palsy Sports Association (ADESPA) also participated.
Fernando Reyes set a new national record in the U20 and Senior Men’s Triple Jump of 14.88m.

Nicaragua

President of the Nicaraguan Athletics Federation, Xiomara Larios, remains intent on ensuring that her country is well represented in athletics when her country hosts the XXXII Senior Central American Athletics Championships take place, 1 – 2 July 2022.
Over the weekend, 7 – 8 May, the Federation organised its National Senior Athletics Championships, with the participation of 24 clubs and 246 athletes (87 women and 159 men). The most outstanding athlete was hammer thrower, Carlos Alberto Arteaga, who set a new record of 57.90m.
Costa Rica’s, Desiré Bermúdez, won the women’s 200m and 400m respectively.
As part of Nicaragua’s preparations to host the Senior Championships in July, much attention is being placed on the enhancement of the lights at the national athletics stadium.
Winning clubs of the National Senior Athletics Championships:
1. Factory (Managua). 12 Gold, 5 Silver and 3 Bronze).
2. Athletic Carlos Vanegas, (Managua). 9 Gold, 9 Silver and 13 Bronze).
3. Tola, (Rivas). 5 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze).
4. Rivas UNP, (Rivas). 4 Gold, 8 Silver and 3 Bronze).

St Vincent and the Grenadines

Over 200 children from six zones in St Vincent and the Grenadines, decked out in several colours took centre stage on Saturday as Team Athletics St Vincent and the Grenadines joined the rest of the world in celebrating Kids Athletics Day on Saturday 7 May.
The local Kids Athletics Programme, coordinated by TASVG’s Technical Director, Chester Morgan, accompanied by coaches and physical education teachers from the zones took the children, aged 4 – 14, through their paces at the executed exercises in the Run, Jump and Throw disciplines before an appreciative crown at the nation’s new national stadium at Diamond.

The Kids Athletics activity took place at the national stadium where TASVG was at the same time, conducting its annual Wendell Hercules National Championships. The children had an excellent opportunity to perform before patrons and the athletes engaged in the Championships as well as observe the performance of their seniors in a major local competition.
The Kids Athletics programme has taken off in St Vincent and seems to be appealing to parents, teachers and coaches such that the numbers emerging from what is really a pilot project, has already yielded significant numbers.

Historic Championships at the new stadium

Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 May 2022 will forever be etched in the annals of Vincentian sporting history as Team Athletics St Vincent and the Grenadines (TASVG) hosted the Annual Wendell Hercules Open Championships at the new national stadium, 7 – 8 May 2022.

The athletes of the clubs that comprise TASVG were eager to be part of Vincentian sporting history and certainly delivered good performances for the appreciative crowd on hand.

A representative team from neighbouring Grenada participated in the competition.

Kyle Lawrence redeemed himself by turning the tables on Devonric Mac in the 100m, winning in

10.56. Mac finished in 10.63 with Andros Dennie in third in 10.78.

In the 200m, however, Lawrence was stuck in the blocks and Mac romped home easily in 21.40, ahead of Adaim Peters of Grenada (21.65) and Andros Dennie (21.98).

Shonte Matthias easily won the 100m for females while Grenisha Thomas did the honours in the 200m.

Awards were presented on both days by the wife and children of the late Wendell Hercules, in whose honour the Championships have been held for the second consecutive occasion.

US Virgin Islands

Smith keeps on winning. That’s what is being said on US Virgin Islands athlete, Michelle Smith, a High School Sophomore at Montverde Academy.

Competing at the Regional Championships on 5 May, Smith won the 100m Hurdles in a new national junior record of 14.19, bettering her old record of 14.31 which she ran at the Carifta Games in Jamaica earlier this year.

Smith also won the 300mH in 41.90, and the 800m in 2:18.81.

Michelle Smith qualified for the Florida High School State Championships in all three events, ranking first in the 300mH, second in the 100mH, and ninth in the 800m.

Smith’s School, Montverde Academy, headed the teams’ standing at the Regional Championships. Ursinus College Junior, Rachel Conhoff, placed second in her Conference in the 3000m Steeplechase, on 7 May, setting a new VI national record of 11:21.78. Conhoff also anchored her 4 x 800m relay team which placed third.

On 8 May, Conhoff won the 1500m in a new VI National record of 4:35.43, breaking Ninfa Barnard’s old record of 4:37.41, set in 2014.