Cycling, athletic road races and swimming completed
… Official launching ceremony to be held today at Guyana National Stadium
THE Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU)-organised 51st National Schools’ Cycling, Swimming and Track & Field Championships commenced yesterday with three sport disciplines in the Georgetown District where it is being hosted.
The prominent event which is mainly sponsored by Digicel got under way with the cycling and athletic road races then ended with the swimming contests at the recently commissioned National Aquatic Centre, Liliendaal.
Contestants are from the 16 districts namely, 1 – North West, 2 – Essequibo Coast, 3 – West Demerara, 4 – East Coast Demerara, 5 – West Berbice, 6 – Corentyne, 7 – Bartica, 8 – Potaro Siparuni, 9 – Rupununi, 10 – Upper Demerara, 11 – North Georgetwon, 12 – East Georgetown, 13 – South Georgetown, 14 – East Bank Demerara, 15 – New Amsterdam and 16 – Essequibo Islands.
Each district is represented by the respective number allotted to it. District 11, North Georgetown, are the defending champions and have consecutively captured the title for the past two years. The District also have a record five consecutive years as champions achieved over a decade.
In the 40km male cycling road race yesterday morning, no winner has yet been decided due to a technicality which caused the cyclists to take an incorrect path. However, in the 25km female cycle road race, District 15’s Morica Dick was victorious with a time of 56:20 seconds.
District 6’s Crystal Lambert followed in second place with a time of 1:01.4s and District 4’s Girlie Stanley was third with a time of 1:03.6s.
Winning the male 10K road race was District 10’s Nathaniel Giddings who clocked a time of 38:08.1s ahead of Chavez Sital (D4) and Jeres Rahaman (D6).
Regina John of District 9 was the female 10k road race winner in a time of 47:57s to defeat National athlete Jevina Straker (D12) and Shenika Chapman (D10).
Over at the swimming pool, 50 events were scheduled, to commence at 10:00hrs but the first event did not get under way until 11:50hrs.
Up to press time last evening there was no accurate calculation of points standing for the championship.
The Track and Field events commenced today at the Guyana National Stadium along with several cycling races also to be contested on the track.
Prior to these events will be the official launching ceremony with the march past and feature address which is expected to be delivered by President Bharrat Jagdeo.