By Akeem Greene
Not surprisingly, Guyana dominated the Track and Field segment of the Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) and amassed 400 points, easily outscoring French Guiana (269 points) and Suriname (238 points) when the events concluded at the National Track and Field Facility, Leonora, on Saturday.
Guyanese duo Tianna Springer and Javon Roberts won the champion athlete awards as Guyana dominated nearly all of the events at the two-day meet.
Ezekiel Newton clocked 22.10 seconds to complete his sprint double, followed by teammate Malachi Austin (22.70s) and French Guiana’s Far Pierre-Louis (22.88s) in the 200m.
Speaking after the win, Newton told News Room Sport he was happy about the performance, given the hard work in training. He is now setting his sights on replicating that performance at ‘Nationals’, which starts on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Guyana’s Athaley Hinckson was unable to replicate the ‘double’ as she got third in the 200m.
Nalicia Glen, who got second in the 100m, clocked 25.28 seconds to finish ahead of French Guiana’s Nandy Charles (25.53s) and Hinckson (25.57s).
Springer breezed to a time of 2:22.17 seconds to win the 800m in what was another 1-2 finish for Guyana. Nariss McPherson (2:22.19s) and Allanyx Brei of Suriname (2:42.94s) got second and third respectively.
Roberts stopped the clock at 2:00.77 seconds in his 800m triumph with Surinamese Jeffel Koorndijk (2:00.96s) and Guyana’s Matrim Martin (2:06.63s) rounding off the podium.
French Guiana soared in the female Long Jump with Kayssia Hudon (5.54m) just edging teammate Amely Pulcherie (5.53m) to gold, while Guyana’s Amrist Hector got third with a best leap of 5.35m.
In the male category, Guyana’s Staffon Roach had a big jump of 6.88m to easily win ahead of Suriname’s Ja-ie Van Hetten (6.16m) and Mike Mondesir (6.03m) of French Guiana.
Additionally, Guyana won both the male and female javelin events, with Shawn Hunte and Ester Marks securing respective gold medals. Both of the 4x100m relays and the Mixed 4x400m relay were also emphatically won by Guyana.
