OVER 250 athletes in the Joint Services are expected to participate in the Inter-Services Annual Athletics Championships (ISAAC), or Joint Services Championships, which is officially set to start off this Sunday, October 11. The four-day competition which will be held intermittently between October 11 and 16, will see athletes from the Guyana Police Force, Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Fire Service, Guyana Prison Service, and City Constabulary battle it out.
With the competition normally seeing the athletes compete in the track and field events, this year there will be the introduction of a swimming segment, which will be held at the National Aquatic Centre, Liliendaal on the opening day of competition.
Things will start off on Sunday with the Road Relay beginning at 06:00hrs in front of the Police Officers Mess.
After Sunday’s start, Monday will be a rest day with no competition scheduled, Competition continues on Tuesday and Wednesday, while Thursday will be another rest day, then everything climaxes on Friday. Expectations are running high with the two major players in the competition – the GPF and the GDF – both gunning for the win.
As the defending champions, the Guyana Defence Force are refusing to give up their title. GDF last year took a striking win of the championships, ahead of the GPF.
With the competition held last year at the Guyana Defence Force ground, Camp Ayanganna, the GDF had home-turf advantage and, backed by a battalion of strong athletes, the soldiers took home the title, after not having had the pleasure since 2011.
In previous years the competition was held at the Guyana Police Force ground, Eve Leary.
This year neither side will be on home ground, as the competition moves to the National Track and Field Centre at Leonora, for its inaugural hosting on a synthetic surface.
This bodes well for competition which has struggled with weather interference over the years.
Meanwhile, head coach for the GPF, Lyndon Wilson, believes the cookie could crumble either way this year, or perhaps even end in a tie as was the case back in 2012.
“Both teams are evenly matched, I will not run away from that, so basically who slip up that’s the team that will lose.
“The purpose for us is the same, to go there and perform at our best, and win the title.” Wilson told Chronicle Sport earlier this week.
“It’s on a neutral ground. It will be the first time it will be on the synthetic track. We have a number of athletes who have experience on such a surface so we will see.” Wilson told Chronicle Sport earlier this week.
Wilson says his team “went back to the drawing board”, following their last year’s loss, and has since been working on those weak areas that were highlighted by the loss.
“We realise we fell down in some areas that we used to dominate in, so we went back to those areas and worked on them, it was more in the tactical area for us.” Wilson noted. “We have also worked on our strengths, so we have worked all around to strengthen our team.”

By Tamica Garnett