EIGHTEEN-year-old Tyrell Peters had been lying low for a while since the athletics season started, as he nursed an injury, something he said that caused him to lose focus over the past few months, and severely damaged his chances of making this year’s national team to the CARIFTA Games.

However, after last weekend’s South American Junior Championships, Peters is ready to work on his skills and get back where he feels he needs to be.
“If you don’t focus you can’t go anywhere, and I wasn’t focused; so I couldn’t make the team, because I was injured, and was still running, but I’m far better now. I feel much better and I’m getting back to where I was before,” he said.
At last weekend’s Junior Championship, Peters just missed out on taking a bronze in the Boys’ 100m after he ended in fourth place with 10.77 seconds. He was also in the Boys’ 200m where he ended with 22.18 seconds.
Despite not placing in podium position, the South American Youth Championships silver medallist did not walk away empty-handed, being a part of the Boys’ 4x100m that secured a silver medal behind the Brazil team, with a time of 41.30 seconds.
Peters is looking forward to having another opportunity to see how he measures up against his South American counterparts again, after already showing that he could very much hold his own among them at the youth level.
“I was happy with my performance because I wasn’t 100% at the Championships. I was suffering with a groin injury, but I still went out there and showed what I had,” related Peters.
It was last November that Peters was among the very successful four-athlete national team at the South American Youth Championships in Argentina, and made headlines when they returned with a total of five medals, despite fighting harsh weather conditions.
Peters won silver in the Boys’ 100m with a time of 10.68 seconds.
“I was really surprised because it was my second experience going out there but I just put my mind to it. The competition was really hard but the coach said all I needed to do was to focus and I can come out successful,” Peters shared.
The win capped a great season that also included winning silver in the Boys’ 100m and 200m at the Inter-Guiana Games, in 10.69 seconds and 22.06 seconds respectively.
However, he took a blow when he could not make it for this year’s CARIFTA team.
“I felt down but I had to go and train harder and make another team,” He said.
Peters was looking forward to last weekend’s meet to see how he shaped up at the junior level, after only just coming out of the youth (Under-18) level of competition.
Now with everything all said and done, Peters confesses that the competition was definitely a tough one.
“Competition is never enough. The competition was real stiff, but my starts weren’t 100% and I had my injury, so those things were what really bothered me,” he said.