CHRISTIANBURG’s Onasha Rogers qualified for this year’s Flow CARIFTA Games when she overpowered longtime rival Kenisha Phillips,while blazing to victory in the girls’ 100m sprint yesterday at the AAG Classic II,at the National Track and Field Centre in Leonora.
Rogers became the latest athlete to meet a CARIFTA Games qualifying mark, barely making it in the qualifying period, as yesterday’s meet marked the final qualifying event. Playing second fiddle to Phillips since the season started, Rogers finally got her chance to shine as she came through in 11.98 seconds to the 12.02 seconds that Kenisha clocked.
The time was just inside the 12 seconds limit required to qualify in the girls’ under 18 category. Rogers now joins a list that already includes 10 other CARIFTA qualified athletes, which already includes Phillips. Phillips has qualified for the 100m and 200m.
Yesterday was a bad day for the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) Phillips who also took a beating in the 200m in which she lost to Police’s Alita Moore. Moore came in for the win with a time of 24.48 seconds, whereas Phillips took 24.51 seconds to finish the race.

Another of the Girls’ Under- 18 CARIFTA Games qualifier was shining prospect,Chantoba Bright. Bright, who has already qualified for the long jump and triple jump events, further qualified in the high jump at yesterday’s meet. She won the event with a jump of 1.65m, equaling the high jump CARIFTA Games qualifying standard (QS).
Also having merited inclusion on the team by clinching qualifying standards are Claudrice McKoy and Natricia Hooper, on the distaff side. Hooper is currently based overseas, and will be in the girls’ under 20 category, where she met QS in the 400m and high jump.
On the boys end there are Linden’s Daniel Williams, Tremaine Browne, and Tortque Boyce, all in the under 18 (youth) category.In the under-20 (junior) category there are Compton Caesar, Anfernee Headecker and Samuel Lynch.
With yesterday seeing the end of the qualifying period, the AAG is expected to pronounce on the final CARIFTA Games team shortly, and state if any unqualified athlete would be included on the team.