News Releases

Jehue Gordon to fire the pistol commencing the 10th anniversary UWI SPEC International Half-Marathon

For Release Upon Receipt - October 24, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad & Tobago – Appropriately T&T's World Champion in the 400m Hurdles, Olympic Medallist and UWI student, Jehue Gordon will fire the pistol to officially start Sunday's 10th anniversary UWI SPEC International Half-Marathon at 5:50 a.m. With First Citizens Bank as the title sponsor, over 1,000 runners from a dozen countries are registered for the race that starts at UWI SPEC, St. Augustine and take runners on the traffic-free PBR to La Resource, D'Abadie and back.

Among the elite athletes, Nigerian-born U.S. citizen Mary Akor will fly in from her Los Angeles base on Thursday.  Akor was the 2009 UWI SPEC female champion and is also seven-time T&T Marathon female champion. The reigning Run Barbados Half-Marathon champion Richard Kessio is also expected on Thursday.  All the other foreign big guns will arrive on Friday.  From Caracas comes Cuba's top distance runner Norbert Gutierrez Curbeco and duathlon champion Karla Urbina Rojas of Venezuela.  Kenyan George Towett will fly in from Houston.  Towett is in good shape to defend his men's title having clocked 2:17:16 at the Akron Marathon in Ohio a month ago.  Four-time Reggae Marathon champion Rupert Green will touch down from Kingston.  7-time T&T Marathon champion Pamenos Ballantyne of St. Vincent will be the last to jet in.   The Open International prizes are: 1st U.S. $2,000, 2nd U.S. $1,000, 3rd U.S $800, 4th U.S. $500, and 5th U.S. $300.  The winners of this category last year were George Towett and T&T's Tonya Nero. The UWI SPEC records on the AIMS certified course were set in 2006 by Kenyans Ernest Kimeli (1:05:07) and Jemima Sumgong (1:12:08)

The race also serves as the NAAA National Half-Marathon Championships where the prizes are TT $1,500, $1,000, and $500 plus trophies.  Last year's NAAA Champions were Richard Jones and Tonya Nero.

The top UWI students last year were Shirvan Baboolal and Celine Lestrade.  The (15-19) age-group will be very competitive this year with the entry of 2013 Carifta 800m and 1,500m gold medallist Mark London of Tobago and 2013 Carifta 5,000m gold medallist Akeem Marshall of Toco.  The cash awards for all eight age-groups are $1,000, $700 and $500.  Dwight Yearwood is entered in the Physically Challenged category.  The oldest runners in the race are 89-year-old Charles Spooner and 75-year-old Ruth Frazer-Monroe. There are many well-known personalities in the race like JW of Palance fame who is one of "The Ten" running for charity and avid runners, Rampersad Motilal, C.E.O. of Methanol Holdings (Trinidad) Ltd and Dr. Gordon Narayansingh.

In the Team/Club Category, this year’s prizes are $8,000, $4,000, and $3,000 respectively.  Last year's champion was the One A Week Club. In this category, scoring is done by adding the times of the top 15 finishers from each team.

Additionally, to mark this special 10th anniversary, 10 persons will run the race for 10 different charities and the public can donate to these charities.  As an example, James Saunders will run the race to raise funds for Is there not a Cause; you can make a $10 donation to this charity by texting the code 11310 with your Digicel hand-set.  For more info and codes for all 10 charities, please go online to www.sta.uwi.edu/spec/marathon/the10.asp

2013 UWI SPEC top 12 seeded runners and the number each will wear on Sunday are:

1.      George Towett, Kenya

2.      Richard Kessio, Kenya

3.      Richard Jones, T&T

4.      Lionel Dandrade, Guyana

5.      Pamenos Ballantyne, St. Vincent

6.      Norbert Gutierrez Curbeco, Cuba

7.      Rupert Green, Jamaica

8.      Curtis Cox, T&T

9.      Jules La Rode, T&T

10.  Tonya Nero, T&T Female

11.  Mary Akor, U.S.A. Female

12.  Karla Urbina Rojas, Venezuela, Female.

Seasoned runners Philip Lagat and Matthew Hagley will not participate in this year’s event due to injury.

 

 

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About The UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

For the latest UWI News, click http://sta.uwi.edu/news.

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