FIFTEEN-year-old sprinter Deshana Skeete understands that it takes hard work and dedication to develop and to be the best you can and she has her sights set on being a top athlete one day.
“For anything you need, you have put certain things away and just focus on achieving what you want to achieve,” she says when asked how she deals with the struggles of being a consistent athlete while studying and balancing her social life.
The humble, young Lindener is currently preparing to take another big step up in her athletic pursuits as she gets ready to represent her country at the South American Youth Games in Chile, where she will be competing in her pet events, the Girls’ 200m and 400m.
However, Skeete almost thought of pulling out when some of the challenges had gotten to her earlier this year.

“It’s very difficult sometimes. She had wanted to give up and all because she said in Georgetown things are better off, because athletes would get sponsorship and things like that,” her mother Nicketa Weekes. shared
But Weekes said she has seen her daughter come too far to give up now.
“I told her, ‘You’ve reached a long way, you can’t give up’. Even a few days ago we were finding it difficult to buy some of the things for her to go, and she said she wasn’t going anyway, but I told her no you have to go.. She makes me too proud,” Weekes said.
This will be the biggest competition, to date, that Skeete would participate in since she first began taking athletics seriously at the age of nine. So far she has only represented her country at the Inter-Guiana Games, which she did twice.
At this year’s IGG, Skeete returned with an individual gold and silver medals which she copped in the 400m and 200m events. She also played a role in the gold medals that the Guyana girls 4x100m and 4x400m teams attained.

“I’ve been training very hard and focusing on my academics. I train every day of the week, Saturday mornings, and Sunday mornings,” the Mackenzie High student disclosed.
“Sometimes I have to miss practice for homework.”
Weekes remembers how her little daughter would always be running, and when she entered school it was only natural that the teachers ask her to represent the school in the National Schools Championships.

As fate would have it, she qualified to go to Nationals in her first year of competing. Though at the time she was not affiliated to an athletics club, she would be up early in the morning to do whatever little training she could on her own, set on being one of the lucky athletes to make it to Nationals.
However, after a mix-up Skeete was not notified that she qualified for Nationals and had to miss out – a disappointing blow to her when she was just nine years old.
But seeing it all as a stepping stone, she continued to push on, and shortly after that she met the coach of the Christianburg/Wismar Secondary School Athletics Club, Moses Pantlitz, and began training. She ensured she made it to Nationals every year after that. Weekes ensured that she also never missed a year to be by her daughter’s side and to beam over her pride and joy.

Soon a fierce rivalry developed between Skeete and junior front-runner, Kenisha Phillips, in the 100m, 200m and 400m sprints. Though Phillips usually got the better of Skeete, last year it was Skeete who rose to the occasion and stole the 200m and 400m wins from Phillips, putting her name in the record books along the way
She won the Girls Under-16 400m in a record 57.7 seconds. She credited the rise to her hard work, and perseverance.

“I used to get beaten in almost all my events but I just put all my hard work into practice, especially last year when I was preparing for Nationals, and I saw that I was successful, so now I’m just focusing harder on my goals that I want to achieve.
There is nothing that Skeete enjoys more about her running than being on the field hearing the applause of her supporters.
“My favourite part of being an athlete is when I go on the field and I start to run, and you hear the noise and persons screaming your name.