By Joe Chapman
GUYANA’S two-time CARIFTA Games 1500m bronze medallist Shaqua Tyrrell will leave Guyana today for the Hinds Community College located in Mississippi in the United States, where she will be in school for two years with the aim of continuing her education and embarking on an athletic career.

The former Wismar/Christianburg Secondary School athlete is to continue her athletic career through this full track and field scholarship and will be enrolled on August 10 at the college.

Tyrrell will be taking to the track representing Hinds Community College in the National Junior Collegiate Amateur Athletic (NJCAA) circuit during her two year stay there.

Her coach at the Wismar/Christianburg Secondary School, Moses Pantlitz, who incidentally is her father, will be accompanying his daughter this evening and offered this comment to Chronicle Sport yesterday: “She will be leaving here basically to do the 800m or 1500m event, but when you reach there it is possible that the coaches will put her according to their inclination of her talent.”

But at present she is doing the 800m and 1500m here in Guyana. However, I am not sure what will be the scenario when she arrives there, if they are going to keep her running the 800 or 1500m but she has been getting better results over the 1500m.

The fact is that this Linden athlete Shaqua Tyrrell has been doing better at the 1500m run over the years since she began running in 2015. She has had more glory there as she is a two-time Under-17 Girls’ 1500m bronze medallist at the CARIFTA Games in the Cayman Islands in 2018 and in The Bahamas 2019.

Both times at the CARIFTA Games Shaqua Tyrrell lost to Jamaicans when she won bronze, and Pantlitz, who was there on both occasions, felt it was due to a lack of putting the races together. He pointed out that especially in 2019 she erred in running in lane three for the most part and had she positioned herself just behind the Jamaicans in lane one , she might have done better.

In an invited comment on receiving the scholarship Ms Tyrrell said “Well, I am very excited for this opportunity to get to explore different things and get to study somewhere very accommodating; so I am excited and very pleased.

Knowing that her best performances have come over the 1500m event when asked of her preference she remarked, “Well I prefer running the 1500m because it is the first event I have ever done and have mastered more. I have done better in the 1500m than when competing in the 800m. I am working to better my times and personal-best performances when I take up this scholarship.”

Ms Shaqua Tyrrell started her athletics career while attending the New Secondary in Linden in Third Form, after which she proceeded to the Wismar/Christianburg Secondary where she finished secondary education,

While competing at either the National Schools Track and Field Championships or regional Inter-school sports she has been outstanding. Coach Pantlitz said, “She never lost at Inter-school and she has never lost at Nationals in the 1500m but had two losses at Nationals over the 800m and she has obtained eight gold and two silver medals over the five years at Nationals.

He quipped, “She, at one time, had the better of Deshanna Skeete at Nationals over the 400m distance in 2019 and Skeete now is also on a scholarship at a college in the United States of America.

Coach Pantlitz was quick to say, “So she really had a good school year in 2019 and I must thank Ms Marian Burnett who has been doing a fine job trying to see that potential athletes leave Guyana and go to junior colleges and improve themselves to pursue their track and field and academics at a higher level.”