… Hutson confident of team doing Guyana proud

QUAMEL Prince, Aliyah Abrams and Emmanuel Archibald, according to AAG president Aubrey Hutson, are all set to compete at this year’s IAAF World Athletics Championships, which will start today in Doha, Qatar, at the Khalifa International Stadium.

The biennial championship, which will run this time around from September 27 to October 6, will see Prince compete in the 800 metres, while Abrams and Archibald will do action in the women’s 400 metres and men’s long jump respectively.

“I’m very confident in these athletes; actually very optimistic that they can pull it off,” stressed the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) boss, who is currently in Qatar, where he attended the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) congress and played a part in Sebastian Coe being re-elected as president and Ximena Restrepo being voted in as the Federation’s first female vice-president. 

Guyana have never won a medal at the IAAF’s marquee championship, but this time around, Hutson said those medal hopes lie on the shoulders of 25-year-old Prince, whose personal best of one minute, 45.58 seconds (1:45.58), at the time when it was clocked (May 17), was one of the top times in the world this year.

“Athletes like Quamel are what people around the world shop for. He’s a 1:45 seconds 800m athlete and with the right athletes and competition around him, especially at this stage, you can never tell what could happen because he has the ability and potential to run faster,” Hutson told Chronicle Sport in an exclusive interview.

France’s Pierre-Ambroise Bosse is the 800 metres world champion, having won the event at the last championship with a time of 1:44.67. Prince will face off with Bosse on Saturday, September 28.

Meanwhile, in the case of Abrams, Hutson said the 22-year-old US-based athlete is working hard to show that she has been warranting her place on Guyana’s Track and Field team at several high-profile events including the Olympic Games.

Abrams, who clocked a personal best 51.13 seconds in June of this year, will be on the track in Qatar on Monday, September 30.

In the case of Archibald, the country’s National Record Holder in the long jump (8.12 metres), the AAG president believes that the Lindener, who is now based in Jamaica, competing for the University of the West Indies, is also in a point-proving mood, especially after a horrid performance in Peru last month.

“I think Archibald will want to also show people that his performance in Peru was simply due to his not adapting to the weather. He jumps over eight metres, which is a big deal at this level. He qualified because of his position in the world at a certain time this year and I think that should tell people of his how good he really is,” said Hutson.

Archibald will be in ‘Group A’ in today’s qualifiers. Of 27 athletes, Archibald’s 8.12 metres jump this year is better than only Australia’s Henry Smith (8.06 metres).