…AAG heaps praises on 12-man team’s performance
It was a historic showing by Guyana at the South American Track and Field Championships, in Santiago de Guayaquil, Ecuador, with the team ending its participation at the May 29 – 31 event with five medals– four bronze and a silver.
It was the Guyana’s biggest medal haul at the event which officially started in 1918 in Montevideo, Uruguay.
President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Hutson, lauded the 12-member team’s performance as being beyond satisfactory, despite Guyana not being able to secure a gold medal.
This was Guyana’s first time on the podium since Winston George won gold in the men’s 400m finals (45.42s) in 2017. Though attending the games in 2019, no Guyanese was able to secure a medal-finish.
Brazil once again finished at the top of the 12-country event, collecting 49 medals (26 gold, 11 silver and 12 bronze). Colombia, with 24 medals (eight gold, 13 silver and three bronze), followed by Venezuela (four gold, two silver and three bronze) wrapped up the top three places.
Guyana’s tally saw them finishing ahead of Peru, Bolivia, Panama and Suriname on the medal table.
Emanuel Archibald opened Guyana’s medal count with silver in the men’s 100m with a time of 10.23 seconds.
However, Archibald, the country’s national long jump record holder, finished seventh in his pet event with a leap of 7.75 metres; something Hutson said he was a little disappointed about.
“I don’t want to use the word disappointed, but I was expecting Archibald to win the Long Jump, or do better. I mean, he opened the season with 8.10 metres. But other than that, I’m very happy with the team,” Hutson explained.
Hutson told Chronicle Sport that the AAG was happy, “because when you look at everything, COVID-19 and all, it was a good performance. It was our biggest team as well. It was good to know where your athletes stand.
Jasmin Abrams was third in the women’s 100m, running 11.50s, while Jenea McCammon crossed the line at 13.63s to finish third in the women’s 100m hurdles.
Andrea Foster’s time of two minutes, 05.93 seconds, was good enough for third in the Women’s 800m finals. Quamel Prince was fifth in the men’s 800m finals with a time of one minute 49.48 seconds.
Meanwhile, Akeem Stewart was disqualified in the Men’s 200m final (False Start). Stewart had run 21.18 seconds in his heat, which was the second fastest time in the qualifying round.
The other Guyanese in the 200m preliminary, Arinze Chance, did not make it to the finals.
But Stewart would team up with Archibald, Jeremy Bascom and Nolex Holder to finish third in the Men’s 4X100m relay. Their time of 40.02 seconds was good enough for third place, behind Colombia (39.65s) and Brazil (39.10s).
