– Intensity shifts to the National Park today
AT the crack of dawn on Saturday, athletes took to the pool at the National Aquatic Centre, Liliendaal to begin the second edition of the Kares Crossfit Caribbean Championship. Every athlete in the three categories went at each other but when the clock expired, the internationals were in pole positions.

Englishman George Dutton finished in a time of 24 minutes, 14 seconds (24:14) ahead of reigning champion Guyanese Dillon Mahadeo (26:02) and Trinidadian Bryant Snaggs (29:35) in the Men’s RX category. The trio proved their superior fitness over the other five athletes in the category who failed to finish their Swim Grace routine within the 30-minute time allocation.

Dutton started to move ahead in the first 100 M swim after completing 30 clean and jerk at 135 lbs; Mahadeo managed to close the gap slightly as the athletes competed to burn 150 calories doing ski pulls.
Dutton kept the lead after another strong swim in the second 100 M swim before using up a lot of energy to burn a further 60 calories on the echo bike but finished strong with the final 100M swim ahead of Mahadeo and Snaggs who just managed to beat the clock.

The other athletes who failed to finish with the time allocation are ‘Pastor’ Omisi Williams (Guyana), Kellon Reid (Guyana), Demron Thompson (Barbados), Christopher Henrey (Guyana) and Timothy McAndrew (Guyana). Henery who was first to complete the clean and jerk dropped back significantly in the pool where he was not that strong is expected to lead a strong challenge to the leaders today on the tarmac of the National Park.

In the Women’s RX category, there were six starters but only defending champion Ava Zalman of the Netherlands and American Bryleigh Hansen finished the entire workout within the stipulated 30 minutes.

Zalman was in beast mode from the clean and jerk and opened the gap showing her poise in the pool while Hansen and fellow American Heather Hudson were leading the chasing pack. Zalman stopped the clock at 22:45 while Hansen got there at 29:03.

Hudson will go into day 2 in third position followed by Delice Adonis (Guyana), Patiqua Cooper (Bahamas) and Dashawna Williams.
The day began with three male Under-21 athletes competing in a Swim Randy event however, it only included 75 snatches of 75 lbs, 50 M swim, 75 calories ski pulls and finished with 50 M swim. All three finished within the 20-minute time allocation with Vladimir Woodroofe (13:38) leading the way ahead of Haresh Rameshwar (17:10) and Kevin Radeshwar (19:33).

Day two will see the RX athletes going toe to toe in The Fire Drill, Inverted-Flame and Greater Heights to be crowned Kares Crossfit Champion and hold bragging rights.
Tickets will be available at the gate at $6,000 for VIP and $1,000 for General seating. Action will run from 11:00 hrs. to 17:45 hrs. using natural daylight.

The prestigious championship is being live streamed by FL Sport and may be seen on www.flsport.gy, on YouTube at FL Sport and on the Guyana TV Network app on the FL Sport channel.