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October 2013 |
Heading the list on the men’s side are two proven Kenyan athletes: our 2011 and 2012 champion, Texas-based George Towett, and Michigan-based Philip Lagat. Towett is fresh from clocking 2:17:16 at the Akron Marathon in Ohio. Lagat was the Most Outstanding Foreign Athlete at the 2008 Southern Games, who moved up to the marathon last year and won the Quad Cities Marathon in 2:19:41. For the very first time we will see a top Cuban road runner in our midst, Norbert Curbeco, who boasts a PB (personal best) of 1:04:21 in the Half. Jamaican marathon champion Rupert Green, four-time winner of the Reggae Marathon, who was the top Caribbean runner at last December’s Run Barbados Half, will make his eagerly-anticipated bow to road running in Trinidad. Pamenos Ballantyne needs no introduction to the Trinidad public, having been the dominant distance runner in the English-speaking Caribbean for the better part of 20 years. T&T’s Richard Jones who finished in second place last year, 1 minute 19 seconds adrift of Towett, will lead the local challenge with the up-and-coming Matthew Hagley and the durable veteran Curtis Cox. Trinidad-based Kelvin Johnson will ensure that Guyana is represented at this forum. There will be an intriguing three-way battle among the women. Our 2012 Champion and Caribbean distance-running queen, Tonya Nero of T&T, will be up against our 2009 Champion Nigerian-born Mary Akor and the exciting 27-year-old Karla Urbina Rojas of Venezuela for the top honours. Mary Akor is the most well-known of our elite runners, having represented the USA at two IAAF World Championships marathons. She has run over 50 marathons. In her own words, she uses some marathons as long runs and she just happens to win some. Amazingly, at the age of 36 last year, she clocked a PB of 1:14:19 in winning her hometown race, the Los Angeles Rock ’n Roll Half-Marathon. Incidentally, with both races on the same day she chose to run UWI SPEC this year. In May this year, she picked up US$9,000 as the winner of the Pittsburgh Marathon in 2:37:35. Need we say more? Spectators are in for a treat. In our 2004 inaugural race, Tonya Nero was barely 15 years old when she placed third among the women. She has now developed into the champion female distance runner we have been desperately seeking all these years, and for her, this 10th anniversary race may just be another step on the road to world class level. Like Mary, last year she did a PB and set a new national record of 1:15:13 at the IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships in Bulgaria. Karla Rojas clocked 1:16:48 at the Samsung Half-Marathon in Caracas last year. That time would have been good enough to secure victory in each of the previous nine years except in 2006 when the classy Jemima Sumgong blitzed the course in 1:12:07. To be sure, we didn’t expect 2013 to be an ordinary year. I must thank my good friend, Raffique Shah, who acted with Dr Iva Gloudon as midwives to deliver this UWI SPEC Half-Marathon. I don’t know how runners react to this thing that gets them out of bed at four or five in the morning to train to run 13.1 miles. Organising this race has not been easy. It is the largest mixed race (male and female) in Trinidad, and it was limited to 1,010 entries this year. I would like to see a gradual increase in the number of participants, and for it to develop into an unofficial Caribbean half-marathon championship. I think we have taken a big step in that direction this year. However, in future it would help if our sister races in the Caribbean recognise that this one is held on the last Sunday of October, as is has been since 2010. This year the South-American 10K in Guyana is on the same day as ours. That effectively rules Cleveland Forde out of our race as he understandably will want to run his home race. Tonya Nero is the female defending champion of both events and the clash of dates put her in an awkward position. We hope such a situation could be avoided in future in the interest of the sport. Looking further ahead, we hope to partner with NAAA/NACAC to host the NACAC Half-Marathon Championships one year which would bring to our shores the top distance runners of the USA, Mexico, Canada and the other NACAC countries. Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to the many people who have contributed selflessly to get this race on the road today. Raymond Chin Asang is Technical Director of the UWI SPEC INTERNATIONAL HALF-MARATHON. |
Looking back, 2012 was always going to be the calm before the storm—with the big 10th anniversary looming. And so it was. The 2013 race brings together a stellar cast of runners from no fewer than nine countries that would make any regional road race proud, and affirms the UWI SPEC International Half-Marathon as an annual feature on our nation’s sporting calendar.