NINETEEN-year-old Laurindo Prince is into basketball, cricket, table tennis and volleyball, but lately he has really been working on his ability in athletics.

His pet events are the 400m and 800m, while to a lesser extent the 200m.
Though Prince has been involved in sports since the age of 15 years, starting with basketball, it was only in 2015 that he got started in athletics. He has since evolved into one of Guyana’s better junior quarter-milers.

Despite being involved in so many other sports, Prince was both surprised and impressed by his pace of development in athletics, and decided to make it his main focus.
“It’s based on progress, and I started running from nothing and within a short space of time, I was developing fast and going places,” Prince shared

“I use the other sports as side-training for athletics. We don’t have proper training facilities, so if the rain falls I use the other sports to upkeep my fitness
Prince recently clocked a personal best of 48.61s at the National Schools Championships. Although it was not the sub-48 seconds he was hoping for, it nonetheless showed marked improvements from the 50s timings he was running just earlier this year.
Hailing from the town of New Amsterdam, Prince is one of a few athletes from Berbice who have been developing particularly since the establishment of the Super Upcoming Runners Athletics Club opened a Berbice branch.

Athletics in Berbice has seen interests grown significantly over the past few years, noticeably since last year, when athletes made headlines after a few overseas-based Guyanese took a group of little-known athletes to the prestigious Penn Relays.
When another group of Berbicians ventured to the event again this year, Prince was given a chance to be a part of the New Amsterdam technical team that attended the US-based event.

His team was not able to medal in their 4x400m event, due to another athlete being injured. However, some other Guyanese who were participating at the event were impressed enough with Prince’s performance to ask him to be a part of their sprint medley team. He joined Owen Adoinis, Tevin Garraway, and Earl Lucas to go on to set a new national record in the sprint medley (220mx200mx400mx800m) of 3:44.70s.
“I was really happy and excited and it gave me a chance to go and compete in the same category with a lot of big names. Probably the biggest part of my career,” Prince said.
Prince was given the chance to stay in the U.S. and train with Guyanese-based athletics coach Akanni Daniels. He continued to develop on his times and attracted the interest of at least one US-based college. However, he was told if he was interested in a scholarship he would need to get his timings down below 48 seconds.
Prince returned home to participate in the South American Junior Championships but after suffering an injury he finished sixth in the 400m.

“It hurt me a lot knowing that I normally perform on top, win week after week. And knowing that when it really mattered I couldn’t perform, it really hurt me. But it motivated me more to press even harder. One error isn’t going to hold me back. And I haven’t been running long like everybody else, since I only started running in 2015,” he said.
Using the loss as a stepping-stone Prince decided to move on and continue his development.
“So I went back to the U.S. and started my training for school nationals. Then in September 2017 I got enrolled in New Amsterdam Technical Institute and started in my pursuit to Nationals.”
Now with his 48 seconds that much closer in sight, Prince is looking forward to his 2018 season.